A Place We Call Home
by Kouri Arashi
Summary: Follow-up to 'Coming Undone'. Stiles and the others decide to expand the pack. There's this kid Derek met in a cemetery named Isaac... -now with added Erica!-
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I have so many feels for this AU I've created. I also have many feels for Isaac. Yay, Isaac! Don't worry, we'll take care of you here..._

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Prologue

The whole thing starts innocently enough, on a rainy Saturday afternoon while they're all just lazing around the Stilinski house. Stiles asks Derek how many people are in a typical werewolf pack, and he says, "Usually somewhere around a dozen. I've heard of ones with as many as twenty."

"Wow, we're tiny," Stiles replies.

"Is that bad?" Scott asks, uncertain.

Derek shrugs a little. "Typically, the bigger the pack, the stronger the pack. So it's not _good_. But a lot has been going on."

Scott opens his mouth to ask how many had been in the Hale pack, but shuts it quickly when he realizes how hard that question would hit Derek. He just doesn't want to know that badly. So instead he asks, "How do you pick new members? Do you wait for other wolves who want to join?"

"Some do it that way," Derek says, and shrugs again. "Some packs travel. Some don't. Some turn their own wolves, some don't. Every pack is different."

"So we just have to figure out how we're going to do it," Lydia says.

"At the risk of sounding . . . I'm not even sure how this is going to sound," Allison says, "but I'm not sure we should wait for others to come to us. We've got something of a strange situation here." She winds her fingers through Scott'. "I'm not sure we'd get the sort of people we would want."

Derek frowns slightly and gives Stiles a sideways glance, but the teenager says calmly, "No, she's right. We can't take anyone who's already a wolf. They would never bow to a human alpha."

"Not just the human thing," Allison adds. "It's an age thing. People who travel alone are almost always adults. They won't give way to a teenager, 'wolf or no."

"So we should look around the area," Lydia says, tapping her fingers against the table.

Stiles frowns slightly. "Are you guys sure you want to do this? Make the pack bigger? It's all well and good to be stronger, but the way we are now . . . we all respect each other, we work well together. If we bring in anyone else, we could really upset that balance."

Scott shifts, uncomfortable. Things are better now, even good, but the change was still a lot of trauma for him. He thinks of Lydia as well, but she seems to be going about this practically. Maybe that's her way of dealing with it. "I . . ." He blows out a breath. "I don't know that my opinion can actually be trusted," he says, just throwing that out there on the floor with everything else. If nothing else, he can bow out of the conversation.

Derek sighs, but at least it isn't one of his angry sighs. Or it is, but it isn't directed at Scott, not anymore. There are days when he really wishes he could wring Peter's neck. "What happened to you wouldn't be the way we would bring anyone else in. _If_ we decide to. We'd give them all the facts and then give them a choice."

"Did you know," Stiles says suddenly, "that most teenagers brains' haven't actually developed to the point where they can accurately weigh long-term consequences?"

Derek just looks at him silently, which is his way of saying that he has no idea what to do with that statement. Scott, who's more used to Stiles' sudden jumps in logic, says, "So, are you saying we shouldn't do anything right now? Or, uh," he continues, since that would also be a decision with consequences, "that we should ask someone else?"

"Maybe we should ask someone with an ounce of common sense," Lydia says, somewhat acerbically.

She obviously doesn't mean it seriously, but Stiles gives her finger-guns and says, "Good idea." Then he raises his voice. "Hey, Dad? Dad, can you come in here for a sec?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute," Sheriff Stilinski calls out from the other room.

"That works," Scott says, feeling strangely relieved while Allison's mouth is just opening and closing silently, as if she can't believe this is really happening. Scott gives her hand a squeeze.

Derek recovers quickly. "Do I need to point out that I'm not a teenager?"

"No," Stiles says, "but you've also never been just a regular human, either. So your perspective is skewed. Besides, if we start making more werewolves, my dad will know anyway, and he'll feel better if I talk with him about it first."

Sheriff Stilinski arrives then, leaning on the door-jam of Stiles' room, a mug of coffee in one hand. "Do I even want to know what you little heathens are up to now?"

"Dad, I am shocked and hurt by that assumption," Stiles says, pressing one hand over his chest, "but since you ask, we're talking about whether or not we should expand the pack. You know, make more werewolves and such."

Stilinski folds his arms over his chest and says, "Well, I guess the first thing I would want to know is why."

"Excellent question," Stiles says, and looks at Derek.

Derek lets out a sigh. "The more members a pack has, the stronger it gets. And it's not just 'safety in numbers'. Each member's strength increases, particularly the alpha, with more additions. It's a 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts' sort of thing."

Stilinski moves the rest of the way into the room and sits in Stiles' spare desk chair backwards, resting his arms on the back of it. "Is there a reason you, as a pack, need to be stronger?" He's obviously concerned. "I thought things were pretty well settled."

"The man has a point," Lydia said, nodding.

Stiles pulls one knee up to his chest, considering. "I guess maybe it's sort of an 'in case something else happens' thing? The Argents can't be the only family of hunters. Or another pack might try to take our territory – does that happen?" he asks, directing this question at Derek.

"We aren't," Allison interrupts quickly, before Derek can answer, "and Dad says that anyone else coming here should check with us. But . . ." She shrugs. Just because it should happen doesn't necessarily mean it will.

Derek looks uncomfortable with the questions. "It happens," he says. "Used to be, it would never happen here. The Hales have held this territory for generations and we were always a strong pack." He looks away for a moment, shaking off the loss. "If the packs near us are stationary and steady in size, we could be fine. But it's likely that the average age and unusual make-up of our pack do make us look weak. That could make us seem like an easy target, or it could make us seem like we're too weak to bother with. It's hard to say." He doesn't know much about the neighboring packs anymore. "And don't forget, some betas will want to . . ." He has to stop and take a breath. "Will want to kill Stiles just because that will make them an alpha."

Stilinski chews on this for a few moments. "Bottom line," he says, "is that to me, it seems like you guys don't feel safe. But that may just be because you've all gone through a lot. That makes you need a bigger security blanket, as it were."

"So . . . what do you think the reasonable thing to do is?" Scott just flat out asked.

Stilinski looks around the faces in the room, all looking at him for guidance, which is a little terrifying. He thinks things through carefully before speaking. "I think that _if_ things get out of hand again, it would be a good idea to get more powerful _before_ the fact," he finally says. "Because I don't want what happened a couple months ago to happen again." He reaches out and squeezes Stiles' shoulder. "And if that means adding a few members to your pack, then so be it."

The others all instinctively look at Stiles to see what his take on his father's words was. Stiles lets out a slow breath and then nods. "Okay. I'm fine with having a security blanket. Uh, made of wolves. Or whatever. And I think you're right – when we're being challenged is not the time to find out we're not strong enough. But we're going to have to be careful about who we choose, and I don't know how we would go about that."

"I would go with the same way you would pick out anyone you're going to spend a lot of time with," Stilinski says. "Start with people you can stand. And then see if they would make good friends." He pretends not to notice the looks that Derek and Scott are giving each other. They've come a long way from the circling and snarling they used to do, but they're never going to be buddies.

"There's got to be some basic criteria for the sort of person who would _want_ to be a werewolf," Lydia says, approaching this practically, like a calculus problem.

"People who want to become stronger," Stiles says, remembering the days just after he had gotten free from Peter, how he had regretted not accepting the bite.

"Uh . . . like Jackson?" Scott says, in response to Stiles' criteria, even though he knows that's not how Stiles was thinking about it. He hears the slight shift in his friend's voice and breathing, and knows what he's thinking about.

"Jesus, no," Stiles says, and laughs a little. "I mean, you know, people who want to become stronger for an actual _reason_."

"You mean people that actually need it for some reason?" Allison asks. She seems somewhat skeptical.

"Well, yeah," Stiles says. He looks at her and says, "That's right, you never knew Scott back when he couldn't get through a winter without turning blue in the face and going to the ER at least three times. But that's the sort of thing I mean." He looks at Scott and says, "You haven't had any trouble with your asthma since then, right?"

Scott shakes his head. "My inhalers are actually going out of date. Remember when I had to get the rescue ones filled in bulk so my mom didn't have to go to the pharmacy three times a month?"

"Yeah," Stiles says.

Allison's eyes are somewhat wide. "I guess I never realized your asthma had been that serious. You were trying to play lacrosse like that, really?"

"Yeah," Scott says, somewhat sheepishly. "It was basically like, if I sat out every time I might have an asthma attack, I would never leave the house. My basic rule was that if I wasn't actually turning blue, people around me could just get on with their lives." Scott shrugs. "I watched a lot of gym class for the second half."

"Everyone around here plays lacrosse," Derek says. "It's like a disease."

Allison and Lydia both give dreamy sighs, obviously thinking of boys playing lacrosse.

Stilinski looked at Derek. "I don't think your opinion counts. At least, not in this room."

"Fuck yeah, lacrosse – sorry, Dad – frak yeah, lacrosse is awesome and I am totally making first line next year, you see if I don't," Stiles says. "And don't give me that look, Dad, I know what you're thinking is 'because what my son needs is repeated concussions'. I will make first line and it will be awesome."

"Don't worry," Derek says. "He should be more damage resistant."

"Yeah, just try not to storm the field the first time I get knocked down, scruffy," Stiles says in response.

Derek put a hand on the side of Stiles' head and gives it a sharp push. Stiles dramatically collapses against his father, who just rolls his eyes. Seeing that somebody is going to have to bring them back on task, Lydia says, "So, we want to look for people who are sick, or maybe physically disabled in some sort of way."

Scott nods at Lydia, but then Derek moves, leaning forward. "Only to some degree. Our bodies can't fix everything. Some forms of blindness or deafness, other sorts of physical defects." He pauses then, looking down at his hands for a long moment before speaking again. The others let him have a moment to gather his thoughts, since it's clear that he's not done. "Those are all good ideas, but more than that, I think we want people who are lonely. That's why this works. We've made this a family. We want someone else who needs and wants that." Derek knows all about being lonely. He thinks they all do, in their own way. In fact, they're all nodding along with him as he speaks.

"So maybe we should just take a closer look around school," Lydia suggests. "See who the loners are. I mean, some of them we know, but . . ."

"Some people are just invisible," Stiles finishes for her, nodding. "And we want the invisible ones. Because the obvious loners, they're happy being alone. They put it out there for everyone to see. We need the people that nobody else has noticed."

"Do any of you know a guy named Isaac?" Derek asks. "Your age, maybe a little younger. Tall, gangly, curly hair. Works at the cemetery."

There's a moment of blankness on everyone's face. It persists on Lydia's and Allison's, but light dawns on Scott when Stiles says, "Oh, wait, yeah. I think he sat behind me in biology last year. Isaac . . . starts with L. Laney. No, that's not right. Something like that, though."

"Lahey!" Scott says. "He's new on the lacrosse team." He narrows his eyes at Derek, daring the other werewolf to comment on the sport. "I can smell the soil and sometimes the chemicals on him. He's quiet. _Really_ quiet."

"I still can't place him," Allison says. "Do we share any classes this year?"

"I think he might be in our history class," Stiles says, but he sounds kind of doubtful. "But yeah, I can't think of a single time I've ever heard him speak except maybe a few times he's been called on in class. Which makes him sound like our kind of guy, actually. How do you know him, Derek?"

"I met him in the cemetery the night the omega came through. Remember, the omega's first stop was grave desecration? Isaac was working that night. He's got some steady nerves, even faced with werewolves."

"Wait, so, he _knows_?" Stiles asks, clearly surprised.

Derek shrugs. "Sort of hard to hide when I had to lift a backhoe off the open grave he had been knocked into."

"Fair," Lydia says. "Totally fair."

"But that's a good sign, right?" Allison says. "I mean, that he didn't freak out or make a big deal out of it or start posting on the internet and stuff."

"I would say so," Derek ventures.

"Unlike Jackson, who tried to threaten me?" Scott adds.

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter, then sobers up. "I guess back then exposure _was_ a pretty potent threat because the Argents didn't know you were a werewolf. So, he gets a gold star for trying. And then hopefully a kick in the nuts for being a gigantic douchebag."

"Isn't there a rule about one guy not suggesting doing that to another?" Allison asks.

"Not any rule that I subscribe to," Stiles says.

Sheriff Stilinski clears his throat, and everyone looks over at him. "Okay, guys," he says, "I have one more thing to say, and I don't want you to answer this right now. I want you to really _think_ about this over the next couple of days. These ideas you have about going to people who are sick or lonely are good ideas. But it also means that you're targeting people who are emotionally vulnerable. People who will have a hard time saying no, even if you explain the drawbacks. So you need to think real hard about how you're going to avoid taking advantage of these people. How you're going to make sure that they understand. How you're going to make a decision on who 'deserves' to be in the pack and who doesn't – and how you'll reject people that you don't think will fit in, without causing more harm than good. This is going to be a very delicate sort of thing to do. And let's not forget, and I hate to be the one who brings this up, but nobody else has, but you don't even know for sure that any of you _can_ turn anyone, since none of you werewolves are an alpha. So there's the possibility that you'll decide together someone should join, and promise that to them, but then not be able to follow through."

"Trust me, I hadn't forgotten," Derek mutters.

They all nod in response, faces serious, and Stiles says, "Yeah, we . . . thanks, Dad. We'll be careful. I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Three days later, Isaac stands in front of the house he had been given the address to and tries not to hyperventilate or just turn right around and bolt the other way. He's been bracing himself all week to be able to talk and be honest with a bunch of possible strangers. Both of those things are astronomically outside of his comfort zone, but he desperately wants what Derek has offered. The strength not to feel like a victim all the time, the power to heal so when he does inevitably end up upsetting his father, he doesn't have to feel it for days, but most of all he wants the people. People that he doesn't have to feel silent around, lest he draw unwanted attention. People that will stand up for him. Derek had said pack. That makes them sound a bit fierce and wild, like maybe if he's a part of it, he can stop feeling like prey.

But now he's standing in front of the house, staring at the Sheriff's cruiser. He's at the damned Sheriff's house. That's more nerve-wracking than anything else. What if the man asks about the bruises he couldn't quite get his clothes to cover? What if he asks . . .

Isaac firmly tells himself to shut up, marches up to the door, and rings the bell. His life is already hell. Nothing that happens here can make it much worse.

As soon as the bell rings, there's the sound of pounding footsteps, and then Stiles yanks the door open. Isaac knows Stiles because everyone knows Stiles; it's impossible to take a class with him and not know him, what with his smart mouth. He's not the last person Isaac's expecting to see, since he's the sheriff's son, but he's struck by the sudden certainty that Stiles isn't going to know what he's doing there, that he's somehow at the wrong place, despite having triple-checked the address.

Instead, Stiles grins at him – a grin that is somehow both friendly and feral – and says, "Hey, Isaac, c'mon in," and stands back to let him into the house.

Isaac nods and steps inside, keeping as much space between them as he can without it looking weird and awkward. It's typical behavior for him. Isaac isn't a big fan of physical contact when it can be avoided. Just to make sure he isn't about to make a fool of himself, he says, "You're one of Derek's friends, right?"

"Right," Stiles says, and doesn't correct the word 'friends' to 'pack', at least, not yet. They had agreed beforehand that they wouldn't tell Isaac who at the dinner was and wasn't a werewolf, or who the alpha was, at least not at first, although they wouldn't go out of their way to hide it, either. He waves Isaac to follow him into the kitchen. "Derek will probably be a bit late, because he's like that, he just shows up whenever he feels like it. But that's okay, we'll eat without him if we have to. You know Scott and Lydia, right?" he asks. The two of them are already there. Lydia is chopping vegetables for the salad. Scott, as usual, is not allowed to help with the cooking.

Isaac raises a hand in awkward greeting and manages to loosen his tongue, reminding himself that it's all a matter of removing the brain-to-mouth filter that's so crucial when his father is around. That's it. No filter. How hard can that be? "I know Scott," he says, which is true, at least as well as he knows anyone. "And . . . I know that Lydia exists on the same planet that I do?" He winces a little. Maybe he should work on that no-filter thing.

Scott just laughs, like what he said wasn't completely rude. But watching his face, Isaac can suddenly see that partly friendly, partly feral grin that Stiles wore on Scott's face. He wears it a lot at lacrosse.

Lydia just rolls her eyes a little and says, sweetly, "It's nice to meet you, Isaac."

"So, do you like Italian food?" Stiles asks. "Because I'm making lasagna."

"It's nice to meet you, too." Isaac finds that he actually means it. Somehow she seems less intimidating than Stiles and Scott. In response to Stiles, he shrugs. "I'm honestly not very picky. I mean, I eat the school food."

"Fair point," Stiles says.

"Just wait," Scott tells him. "Once you start eating Stiles' cooking, you'll never be able to look at school lunches the same way."

"That's . . . not encouraging unless he makes your lunches, too." Isaac eyes Stiles. He has to admit that he wouldn't have thought 'family cook' when he was busy getting detentions in class.

He turns as he hears a sharp knock on the front door and then it opens and closes without Stiles or anyone else going to answer it. A minute later, Allison Argent comes into the kitchen, smiling and carrying a grocery bag. Without pausing to put the bag down or shed her jacket, she makes her way over to Stiles, and the two of them lean in towards each other. Isaac is pretty sure that they rub cheeks together, as well as exchange a brief hug. This seems a little weird to him, since it's common knowledge that Allison and Scott are an item. He whips his head around to Scott, who doesn't seem upset in the slightest, but is just watching Allison with a soft, adoring smile. Allison moves over to Lydia and yes, that is definitely cheek rubbing. Isaac just doesn't know what to make of that.

After that, Allison dumps the bag on the counter. "That bread you wanted for garlic bread," she says. She takes off her coat and then settles in Scott's lap, giving him a real, if short, kiss before turning her smile on Isaac. "Nice to meet you, Isaac."

Isaac manages another awkward wave. "Hey." He dredges up some small talk. "I always see you at the games. It's nice to actually meet you."

Stiles, who has practically climbed into the fridge in his search for garlic cloves, says, "Oh my _God_, that last game of the season was so freakin' epic. Coming from behind like that in the last quarter, geez. We are the best."

Isaac relaxes a little. At least this is a subject that he understands. "It was pretty awesome. The look on other team's faces was priceless."

Scott's laughing now. "Did you hear Finstock right at the end when he started quoting the crazy crop duster from ID4?"

"In the immortal words of my generation," Stiles begins, and then they all shout the ending together, even Lydia, "Up yours!"

This gains them a genuine grin from Isaac. "Doesn't he remember that that dude dies?" He pauses, then says, "Then again, it's Finstock."

"Yeah, this is the guy who says 'with your shield or on it' any time one of us is injured," Scott says, rolling his eyes.

Stiles is busy cutting little slices into the top of the bread and then smearing butter and garlic into the gaps he's creating. He snickers at Scott's comment and says, "I'm amazed Finstock knows enough about history to realize what that phrase means. Hey, Isaac, will you toss me that pot holder?" he adds, gesturing to a stack of oven mitts that are sitting on the edge of the counter, by where Isaac is standing.

Allison shakes her head. "I'm suddenly glad that the school doesn't have an archery team or anything I feel compelled to join. I don't think I would survive the hilarity of the adults involved."

Isaac, meanwhile, picks up the pot holder. Stiles is across the kitchen from him, and Lydia is between the two of them, so he takes Stiles' suggestion of 'toss' literally and gives it a gentle throw. Stiles puts one hand up and catches it without actually looking up. "Thanks, dude," he says, pulling the oven open and sliding the bread inside, on the shelf above the lasagna.

Isaac's eyes widen a little bit and he wonders if those sort of reflexes and such are normal for werewolves. It's still a bit weird just to think about. He's also wondering if it's permissible to ask questions.

"Stop showing off for company," Lydia says, rolling her eyes at Stiles, who just grins at her. She shakes her head at him and goes back to chopping the peppers.

Isaac shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders in a little, unconsciously trying to make himself smaller before speaking out of turn. "Do you all have reflexes that good? Is that normal?"

"Yeah," Scott says. "Well, those of us who are wolves do. We're not all wolves. Derek told you that, right?"

Isaac gives a little nod, and Stiles says, "Yeah, how do you think Scott got so good at lacrosse over the summer? It wasn't through practicing, I can sure as hell tell you that."

"Hey!" Scott protests. "I practiced!"

"It just didn't help," comes Lydia's prim reply.

Isaac thinks that he is possibly surrounded by crazy people. It isn't making him want to leave. "Yeah, Derek said that some of you are human, but all of you are pack." Since his last question had gone over all right, he risks another, although his posture doesn't really loosen any. "How does that work?"

"You know, I would so answer that question if I could," Stiles says, "but the best I can do for you is that it is what it is. Some people, you meet them, and you feel this, this click. Like a puzzle piece that goes into a space you didn't even realize was empty. That's what makes someone pack. Whether they're human or wolf."

Isaac nods in understanding, at least of the metaphor, if nothing else. But it makes him feel nervous and sort of inadequate at the same time. He doesn't click with anyone. He's made an art form of slipping through the cracks.

Before he can say anything else, Stiles suddenly says, "Derek's here!" and pounds out of the kitchen.

Scott gives a dramatic sigh, but it's directed at Stiles. Isaac really isn't sure what to expect, but a few moments later Derek comes in with Stiles actually slung over one shoulder while the teenager protests, laughing.

Derek gives Isaac a nod. "Isaac, glad you could make it," he says, like there isn't a laughing teenager draped across him. Isaac watches as Derek moves over to the counter, picks Stiles up by the waist, and plants him on an empty section. "Someone needs to put a leash on you," he growls at him, but it's a play growl, obvious even to Isaac. Derek then moves to Lydia and Allison and does that cheek rubbing thing, which is a little stiffer where Allison is concerned. Scott gets an arm clasp, bro hug, back-slap sort of thing instead.

Recovering, Isaac says, "My Saturdays are not known for being busy."

"Neither are his," Stiles says, hopping down from the counter and checking the egg timer sitting on top of the stove. "He has no life. How's the salad coming, Lydia?"

"Just doing the cucumber now," she says, chopping away.

"Cool." Stiles dives back into the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of lemonade and a pitcher of iced tea. Allison, without being asked, hops up to get some glasses, and Scott starts setting the table.

Derek's eyebrows go up at Stiles' commentary. "What do you call this? And may I remind you that the rest of you social butterflies are here as well?"

Stiles puts his hands on his hips and gives Derek a look. He addresses the others without ever taking his eyes off the older man. "Lydia, when was the last time you did something non-school-related that wasn't with the pack?"

"Yesterday, went clothes shopping with my mom," Lydia says.

"Allison?"

Allison's lips twitch. "Thursday after school, archery stuff."

"Scott?"

Scott is grinning outright. "Yesterday after school, lacrosse practice."

"Derek?"

Derek scowls at him.

"I rest my case," Stiles says.

After mere seconds, a smile spreads across Derek's face. Somehow it looks incredibly charming, but his flat human teeth still seem wolf sharp. "Tell me, Stiles, when was the last time _you_ did something non-school related without the pack?"

"My dad took me to the firing range," Stiles says, but then admits, "two weeks ago. Touche. But still! Quit it with the serial-killer smile."

"Oh, God, you guys," Allison says, "quit terrifying Isaac." She gives him a smile and says, "We want him to _like_ us, remember?"

Derek lets the smile comment go. "We want him to like us. But we want him to like us as we are, not while we're making nice." He turns to Isaac and gives him a questioning look. "Right?"

Isaac shifts uncomfortably under the sudden scrutiny. "Yeah. I'd rather know ahead of time." There's a pause while he reminds himself that the trick really does seem to be to lack a filter. "That was totally a Tom Cruise smile."

Derek looks blank, and Stiles just cackles with laughter. "Oh my God, I _know_, right?" He shoves a handful of napkins at Derek and a stack of plates at Isaac, then lifts his voice and shouts, "Dad! Dinner's ready!"

Isaac feels his heart stutter for a second and he fumbles the plates. Only reflexes and determination born of years of wanting to avoid a trip to the basement for punishment enable him to regain his grip on them before they hit the floor. Only his father is allowed to smash dishes. He swallows, evens out his breathing, and pastes a look on his face like nothing's wrong. "Your dad's here too?"

"Yeah, dude, he lives here," Stiles says, taking the lasagna out of the oven.

Lydia is a little more sympathetic to Isaac, and all the wolves had smelled that spike in fear, heard the change in his heart rate. She says, "He knows about werewolves, though, so it's okay to talk about it in front of him."

"That must be an interesting story," Isaac manages, in what he knows is an appropriate tone. He knows that what Lydia said should have calmed his nerves. He even wishes it had. He wishes his basic fear of law enforcement is that simple, but it isn't, so he just keeps it off his face and sets the plates out on the table.

Scott hangs back a little and gives Stiles a look once Isaac's back is turned, because that smell of fear hasn't diminished as much as it should have. Stiles gives a quick little nod to indicate that he knows, but since there isn't a lot they can do besides see how Isaac reacts once his father's actually in the room, he doesn't say anything. He puts the lasagna down on the table as Allison sets out the silverware. "Tea, lemonade, or water?" he asks Isaac. Derek is already filling the other glasses with what he knows the preferred preferences are.

Isaac starts to say 'water' because that's the only choice he gets at home, and then quickly switches to tea. He needs to stop thinking about his father, and quickly.

The food has all just been put on the table when Sheriff Stilinski jogs in, wearing jeans and a grey T-shirt. "Hey, guys," he says, and gives his son a quick hair tousle on his way by. "Smells great, kid." He extends a hand to Isaac. "You must be Isaac."

"Yes, sir." Isaac shakes his hand. "It's nice to meet you. Thank you for having me over." Nice, polite, normal, everything is fine.

Nobody comments on the term 'sir', although certainly none of them call Stilinski that. In fact, Lydia recently introduced the term 'Papa Stilinski', and it's rapidly picked up popularity. Isaac's tension level is far too high to start poking at his self-control. So Stiles just starts dishing up lasagna and salad and garlic bread, and Derek finishes pouring the drinks, and Stilinski asks Allison about the archery tournament that she has coming up the following weekend. Nice, polite, normal. Everything is fine.

Isaac listens in what feels like awkward silence as they all talk about their lives. The weird people that Scott's mother sees come through the ER, the mathematics contest that Lydia had found on the internet, how Derek is thinking about building a new house on his family's property. He chips in occasionally, when he can think of something interesting to say, which doesn't seem to be very often.

The others let him stew for a little while, but Stiles eventually seems to get tired of dancing around his silence and addresses him directly. "Okay, so, let's get the boring job interview part of this out of the way. What's a good job interview question?" He drops his voice into a fake basso pitch. "Tell us about yourself, Isaac."

Stiles' absolutely ridiculous behavior makes Isaac relax a little, or at least vibrate with less tension. He also isn't sure whether or not Stiles is serious or not, and having everyone's attention suddenly focused on him was a little unnerving. He clears his throat, with no idea what to say, and then Allison says, "Well, tell us the most interesting thing about yourself."

That he can do. "I work at a graveyard," he says. It's succinct, but a real and rather unique answer.

"Yeah, how'd that happen?" Scott asks. "Most teenagers, when they need a job, they go down to McDonald's and get a little paper hat."

Allison gives him a look. "You work at a vet's office."

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean _me_ . . ."

This actually amuses Isaac enough into saying, "I can't imagine any of you working at a McDonald's." He shrugs a little. "Anyway, we, or my dad," he corrects, because he owns nothing. He's just free labor. "My dad owns the actual land. At least until a family buys a plot."

"Child labor," Stiles says sagely, nodding. None of them had missed the slight spike in Isaac's heart rate when his father came up. "It's terrible."

Stilinski gives Stiles a slight cuff over the head. "I apologize for my son," he says dryly to Isaac. "Sometimes he opens his mouth, and sound comes out. We keep working on that habit, and yet it happens regardless."

Isaac watches the exchange between Stiles and his father with a sort of ravenous envy. For the contact to be playful and affectionate. For the comments about encouraging silence to be joking. He shakes the thoughts from his head. "I don't really mind. Grave-digging is strangely meditative. You have to be patient about it. I'm better at it than my father." Which is true, and his father knows it, which is why he lets Isaac do it. Or makes Isaac do it.

"But presumably you don't want to be a gravedigger your whole life," Allison says, then adds, "though, no judgment if you do, I mean, people have stranger hobbies . . ."

"I've really never thought about it," Isaac replies, in a moment of startled honesty.

"I really don't have any idea what I want to be either," Allison confesses.

"Meanwhile, Lydia could be anything," Stiles says, "Scott has wanted to be a vet since he was four, and I've got a new career plan just about every week."

"Just as long as you don't settle on career criminal," Stilinski says to his son.

"You know," Stiles says, pointing at his father, "that you will be proud of me no matter what I do, as long as I do it well."

Sheriff Stilinski just looks long-suffering in response. "True. Very true. But please, don't settle on career criminal. And don't think I don't know about those papers," he adds, shaking a finger right back at Stiles.

Stiles just sticks his tongue out, bounces in his chair, and takes a second helping of lasagna. "So. Dude. You must have questions. I mean, you _must_ have questions. Consider this your free shot at asking anything you want and we promise we won't get offended."

Isaac nearly melts in relief that nobody will be asking him questions, at least not for a while. He takes a minute to try to put his thoughts in order. The first question, 'why me?' he decides to leave for later. "Okay. So, I know there are great reflexes and enough strength to lift a backhoe. What else? And what's the downside? Because nothing is that awesome without some sort of drawback."

Derek fields the first part. "You get what would be for a human, enhanced senses. Better sense of hearing, smell, sight, including night vision. It's comparable to what an actual wolf would have."

"The downside is that, at least in the beginning, you have trouble controlling it," Scott picks up. "Especially the hearing. You'll hear someone say your name three hallways away, find yourself focusing on that, and lose track of what's going on in English. And Finstock's whistle. Don't even get me started on that damned whistle."

"But the real drawback is the full moon, at least at first," Lydia says. "It . . . it's _hard_, learning to control the shifts. You want to kill everyone around you. You're angry for no reason, and trust me, it is _way_ worse than PMS. Someone will look at you the wrong way and you'll want to rip their face off. You can learn to channel it, learn to control it, but it takes time. And you can get kicked around a lot while you're learning."

The last part has Isaac rethinking this for a moment. He gets kicked around enough as it is.

"It does ease up after the first full moon," Scott says, remembering what a disaster his had been, and while his second hadn't been great, Derek hadn't had to _actually_ beat him down, either. "And it's way better with a pack. We look after each other. If you start to slip, someone else will run interference for you. But it is hard."

"And then there are hunters," Allison says, her fingers tapping at the table. "People who will be frightened or hate you because you're different, who will assume you're a monster and try to kill you. And they will try, if they find out."

"We've got a truce with the local hunters," Stiles says, "but there's no telling whether or not it'll be permanent."

Isaac looks around at all of them. "But Derek said that werewolves heal. Even from basically fatal wounds."

Derek nods. "Yes, but there's fatal, and then there's _fatal_. Crushed lungs? Basic gunshot wound from a standard police issue weapon?" He gives a brief nod to the Sheriff, who's listening but not contributing. "We'll get up if given time, and hopefully someone can pull the bullets out."

"But hunters know how to do things that you _won't_ get up from," Allison says. "A large caliber bullet to the heart. Any bullet treated with aconite," she adds, and Isaac gives her a confused look. "Wolfsbane, it's a plant, incredibly poisonous, stops the healing process and messes up a wolf's ability to control their shift. Silver to the bloodstream is poisonous, and can cause blisters and burns on the skin from exposure. Hunters know ways, and the truce doesn't extend off our territory."

"But it is possible to hide being a werewolf, right?" Isaac asks.

Lydia gives him a small smile and says, "You can answer that yourself. You've now spent over an hour with us with none of us trying to hide anything. So, who in this room is a werewolf?"

Isaac looks around, and decides to leave the sheriff out of it. He couldn't really tell based on appearance, sitting around at the table. But Stiles had that feral smile and the fast catch, and he had outed Scott when talking about lacrosse, so those two were definitely a yes. Lydia had practically admitted it while talking about the full moon, and he knew for sure about Derek. Since he knew at least one of them _wasn't_ a werewolf, that left Allison. Given the fact that her last name was Argent and she seemed awfully knowledgeable about hunter technique, he doubted she was a werewolf. "All of you except Allison. And, uh, Sheriff Stilinski."

"Close but no cigar," Stiles says. "Though I suppose it wasn't entirely a fair question, given all the givens. But more relevant is probably that you've seen us all at school and when Derek invited you, you had no idea which of your classmates would be at this little shindig."

"I didn't even know you'd all be my age," Isaac says. "So who am I wrong about?"

"Just me," Stiles says, grinning at him and waiting to see what he makes of that.

Isaac stares at him a little. "Uh." It's that grin at the door. The reflexes are confusing, but hey, humans can have great reflexes. It's the grin that was so similar to Scott's that's really throwing him.

Derek lets out a little sigh. "Since Stiles is obviously going to let you wallow in confusion for the sake of his own amusement, now is probably a good time to explain that he's . . . very unique. Stiles is human, but he's also the alpha of our pack, so he's sort of in between both worlds. He doesn't shift, but he does have some of the enhances senses, reflexes, and healing abilities."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Good to know." Another beat. "Wait, how does someone get that gig? You only get nibbled instead of bitten?"

There are a couple snorts of laughter, although he's certainly heard more laughter at stupider jokes earlier in the evening. Stiles in particular is more serious than Isaac would have expected, and he leans forward over the table a little and says, "No. You have to kill the previous alpha."

Isaac stares at him, and then his eyes do a quick shift to the Sheriff, who's sitting there as impassively as ever, then back to Stiles. "You . . . you're not joking, are you."

"No," Stiles says. "I'm a one-of-a-kind because alphas can be very dangerous, and it's very rare for them to be killed by a human. Apparently, if a human in a pack kills the pack's alpha, they become the alpha whether they're a wolf or not. So. What you need to understand about this situation is twofold. First off is that the previous alpha was a bad, bad man who did all sorts of horrible things, but because he was an alpha, normal law enforcement," he gives a nod here to his father, "couldn't have handled him. The second thing you need to know is that this game is for keeps. People can die, and have died, right here in Beacon Hills because of it."

Isaac swallows, thinking about this and coming up with several things he suddenly wants answers to. But he starts with the possible deal breakers. Even he has lines he won't cross, no matter how much he hates his life. "I'm . . . I'm not sure I'm comfortable being part of something where the only form of passing power is through murder."

Derek turns in his seat to face Isaac, leaning against the table. The meal has long since been forgotten. "That's good. We don't encourage it. In a good pack, a solid, healthy pack, it isn't like that. There's usually a natural line of succession, and the power will move down when the alpha dies of old age. Sometimes it's parent to child, especially if it's in a family-based pack, like mine was. In packs like this, it would most likely be to whoever takes up his duties when he's ninety and would rather nap than deal with unruly cubs."

Scott lets out a snort of laughter despite himself, obviously trying to picture Stiles as ninety years old. He bites his lip to hold it back, but it escapes anyway. Stiles punches him in the arm, and some of the tension leaks out of the room.

"It was . . ." Stiles tries to formulate his thoughts into words. "It was a bad time," is finally all he says, and his father reaches out and touches his forearm for a moment. "We don't want anything like it to happen again."

Isaac watches their interaction and again feels that burning jealousy. It isn't often that how lonely he is and how much he's missing is laid out in front of him like this. Though maybe it's not quite jealousy. He doesn't want it _instead_ of Stiles having it. He just wants it too. He forces himself back on topic. "So if this is so important to you guys, such a major thing, why me?"

The pack glances around at each other, and finally Derek says, "Because pack is something special. Something that not every person can understand, or accept. And . . . it seemed like you needed a pack."

"You seemed very lonely," Allison says quietly.

Isaac gives a humorless laugh. "You're not wrong."

Scott pushes his hands through his hair and says, "All of us, really, had a pretty bad time of it. But . . . we want to think of the pack as being something good. Something that we can bring to other people to make _their_ lives better. But we can't ask just anyone. Most people . . . they wouldn't respond to it the right way. They would go power crazy, or just leech off of us for a couple months and then go look for a stronger, a more normal pack, to be a part of. You . . . don't seem like that."

Isaac just shakes his head. No, if he was given the family he was missing, he wouldn't be walking away from it.

"So . . . how about you?" Lydia asks. "Do you still want to be a werewolf even after hearing about the hunters and the shifting and everything?"

Now that it's down to the wire, Isaac figures he should be honest. He owes it to himself. "I don't do well with getting kicked around."

"Who does?" Stiles asks, rolling his eyes.

Derek takes his comment a little more seriously. "It probably won't have the same impact on you as it would now. You'll be a wolf. You'll _want_ to fight. Taking a few injuries in the course of a fight won't be a big deal, especially given how quickly they'll heal. "

Isaac licks his lips, trying to think of a way he can make them understand without laying his dirty laundry across the dinner table. He looks down. "Taking a hit isn't the trouble. I can do that." He gives a tiny huff of sick laughter. It's there and gone and just a touch too emotional because he doesn't like being backed to a wall, either. "I can _really_ do that. I just . . . don't do well with being kicked around." It's stated more firmly this time, but he's still studying the plate with intensity.

Everyone present blinks at him for a few moments, before Stiles looks over at his father, who just looks back. Finally, Sheriff Stilinski says, "Isaac, you got something you want to tell me about how your dad treats you?"

"No, sir, I do not," Isaac says. It's prompt, polite, and firm.

Stiles clears his throat and says, "Okay, everybody out. Isaac here needs to have a private chat with my father."

Isaac clenches his hands down over his knees, looking at nobody and nothing. He has no idea what to do. This is exactly what he had been afraid of as he had stood in front of the house earlier that evening. What he's been expertly dodging all these years. But now he's afraid that if he lies at all, he'll lose a shot at the family that actually wants him.

Stilinski studies him for a moment as the others get up and file out of the room, leaving their dinners behind without complaint or hesitation. He waits until they're gone, and he can hear the front door open and shut, giving them privacy even from werewolf hearing. Then he says, gently, "Isaac, I'm not going to force you to tell me anything. If you don't want to talk about this, that's fine. But I want to give you that opportunity."

"What happens if I should, uh, happen to tell you something that . . ." Isaac pauses to think very carefully about his phrasing. He's still incredibly nervous, although he very much appreciates the fact that the sheriff isn't going to force the issue, as well as the cleared room. "That might, uh, reflect poorly on someone?"

"I'm not here to judge you or anyone else," Stilinski says. "I'm here to make sure that the people of Beacon Hills are safe. And I'm here, in this kitchen, right now, because Stiles asked me if I might observe the pack dinner and give an adult opinion on any prospective pack members. So, if this has something to do with your reason for wanting to be a werewolf, it might not be a bad idea to at least give me the bare bones of the matter."

"You may not be here to judge, but I do know what the law says. If a teacher, for instance, is told that abuse is happening, they're required by law to report it. I'm assuming that you're not allowed to just ignore it." He still won't look at the man.

Stilinski lets out a long, slow sigh. "Isaac," he says, "the law started to get a little fuzzy for me the minute I found out that werewolves existed. Then . . ." He has to take a minute to gather his thoughts and keep his voice even. "Then my son killed somebody that couldn't be punished by the law. It's kind of skewed my entire perception of how the world actually works. If I didn't report Stiles when he confessed to murder, I think I can avoid reporting your dad if you tell me he mistreats you." Wanting to be clear, he says, "Whatever you tell me won't leave this room. I won't even tell the other pack members if you don't want me to."

Isaac nods, relaxing a little. "Because he's still my dad, you know? And it wasn't always like this."

Stilinski reaches out for the pitcher of water and refills his glass. "I know that you lost your older brother in the military," he says. "That must have been a terrible experience for your family."

Isaac shakes his head a bit. "He was Dad's favorite and I'm just not going to live up to his image no matter how hard either of us try."

"You know," Stilinski says, "I may not know a lot about you or your family, but I can pretty much definitively say that that's bullshit. And you won't believe me. And that's okay, Isaac. It is. Someday I hope you will. But it's okay if that day is not today. My concern right now is making sure that you're safe. I'm guessing that your thought is that if you're a werewolf, he won't be able to push you around as much, or you'll heal if he seriously hurts you. Right?"

While Isaac appreciates the sheriff's reassurance, the man was right in that he didn't believe it. He hadn't known Isaac's brother, who had been a great athlete and no slouch in academics, either. He had been popular and made friends easily. Isaac had never been like that. "The second."

"Okay." Stilinski folds his hands in front of himself. "That poses a problem for me, because I don't like to think of you getting hurt, even if you can heal."

"Well, I think my options are sort of limited, aren't they?" Isaac asks flatly, some of the attitude he tried so hard to keep buried creeping up on him.

"Well, how's this," Stilinski says. "I don't have a problem with you being in the pack, although I do encourage you to think it over carefully before you agree. However, if you decide to join the pack, you'll move out of your house. In fact, I'd be happiest if you never set foot in it again. I'll go back with you so you can get some things, and explain to your father that we'll be taking custody of you. How does that sound?"

Isaac blinks at him. "Where . . . would I live instead?"

"Well, we have a guest room. Scott's house has a guest room. I don't know if Derek would have room for a second person. My advice would be that you spend some time getting to know the pack and then we can decide where you'd best fit in."

"And everyone will just . . . be okay with that?" Isaac asks, suddenly insecure.

Stilinski taps his fingers against the table and says, "This is sort of impossible to explain without being part of the pack, and technically, I'm not. All I can tell you is that I don't think Stiles has spent a single night alone in the last three months. They stick pretty close, and they'll expect you to, as well. I know that's something you're not used to, and I guess I can't guarantee that you'll feel the same way, but . . . God knows that I wouldn't expect Derek or Lydia to be that sort of close to anyone else, and they are. And I've never heard Stiles, or any of them for that matter, complain about feeling smothered or a lack of privacy or anything like that."

Isaac nods. "More than anything else, I want to say yes because they want me." He throws this remarkable sentence out in the open without thinking about it.

From the look on Stilinski's face, that statement actually _hurts_ him on Isaac's behalf; the other teenager looks so lonely and desperate. "I still think you should consider the downsides carefully. Promise me that you'll do that?"

Isaac nods and says, "I promise." And he will think about it, although he's fairly sure that he knows what his answer will be.

"And you agree to my deal about not living with your father anymore?"

Isaac gives another nod, looking uncomfortable. "He might not agree, though," he says, which is true, since he does most of the housework.

"He'll agree when I'm done talking to him," Sheriff Stilinski says. "And if you're willing, it would be a good idea to get some photos, and probably x-rays. Before you're turned and the damage all heals." He gives a little shrugs and says, "Blackmail has worked pretty well to keep the local hunters off our back; I don't see why it wouldn't apply here."

Isaac feels his shoulders tighten even more, but he nods.

"Okay. You ready to let the others back in?"

He gives a huff. "Is that a trick question?"

"Nope. You can say no if you want."

"It really won't change anything, and hiding in here with all the food hardly seems fair."

Stilinski cracks a smile at that and says, "Well, we could prank them. You know. Sneak out the back. Leave them wondering where we went."

In that moment, Isaac can finally see the honest resemblance between Sheriff Stilinski and his son. He suspects that if he agreed, the sheriff would pack up all the food and climb out a window with him. It's a hilarious mental image, and makes the man a little less frightening. For the first time that evening, he feels like things are going to be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I'm not even sure how the first scene in this chapter happened. It was just suddenly like, "Hello, I have issues!" But then there are wolf cuddles, so that's okay._

* * *

Chapter Three

The silence on the Stilinski front porch has sat for a minute too long to be comfortable before Lydia says, "Boy, Derek, you really can pick 'em."

Derek holds out underneath everyone's gaze for a couple of seconds before his shoulders hunch and his hands come up in surrender. "Sorry?"

There's a general snort of laughter even though, really, nothing about the situation is funny. They sit for another minute, Allison and Scott in the porch swing, Lydia perched on the railing, Derek leaning against the door. Stiles is sitting on the porch steps with his back to all of them, spine straight with tension that he's trying not to show. He's gotten better at walling off his emotions so he's not such an open book to the members of his pack, who are more attuned to his moods as their alpha than they necessarily are to each other.

Finally, Allison says, "I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I mean . . . I can't really imagine what it's been like for him, but at least we know he's got a good reason for wanting to be stronger."

"Yeah, well," Scott says, leaning in closer to Allison, "I sort of hope that fighting back isn't what he's after."

Derek makes a noise of agreement, his eyes straying to Stiles. He might not feel a lot of tension through their bond, but he senses it in other ways. Subtle shifts of scent and sound. The way Stiles isn't moving quite right. He knows he's most likely picking up on it, even though the others are missing it, simply because he's been a wolf his whole life. He just has to figure out what to do about it.

"I don't think so," Lydia says, in response to Scott. "From a psychological standpoint, most abused children actually go out of their way to protect their parents. You could even see Isaac doing it in there. He didn't want to admit it in front of Sheriff Stilinski, because he doesn't want to get his father in trouble."

"Just because he doesn't want to talk about it doesn't mean he doesn't want to learn to fight fire with fire." Scott rubs his hands up and down the thighs of his jeans in a slightly nervous gesture. "I'm not saying that's Isaac, or that's what he wants, but it's possible. I was learning to say some pretty nasty shit before my mom made my dad leave. And my temper?" He's sure they've all seen that at this point. "That's not the wolf. That's me."

Derek actually raises his eyebrows at that last part. It's no wonder, then, that Scott was so tough in a fight, even untrained. The wolf was just sharpening instincts that were already there. He doesn't say anything, though, and moves quietly from his place at the door to lean against one of the posts holding up the porch roof to either side of the stairs. When he settles, his toes are practically nudging Stiles in the ass.

Stiles shifts a little but doesn't make a comment, and doesn't reply to what Scott has said, either. It's Allison who responds, lacing her fingers through Scott's to stop his nervous movement. "I think if that's his plan, Mr. Stilinski will get that. He can let us know if we should be worried about it."

"Yeah. He knows what to look for. He put me in my place a few times when Mom didn't want to. I think, looking back, she sort of blamed herself. Which is stupid, but . . ." He squeezes Allison's hand, once again grateful for her. He also watches Derek as he moves over to Stiles, takes in his odd silence and the way he's sitting stiff as a board. "Stiles?" he asks. Derek has apparently decided he's done being polite; he sits down on the step next to Stiles, crowding him.

"What?" Stiles responds immediately, proving that he's at least listening to their conversation even though he isn't participating. He reaches over and gives Derek's shoulder a shove, the same kind of 'get off me' gesture that's usually coming, without any real conviction, in the other direction.

Derek responds to his gesture about as well as Stiles always does. He moves closer, wrapping an arm around the teenager's shoulders.

"What's wrong?" Scott asks, his concern obvious. He starts thinking over the last hour or two and comes to the conclusion that he'll have to wait for Stiles to tell him, because there are a lot of upsetting choices.

"Nothing, I, I just," Stiles says, hunching over a little, "I knew we would have to tell him about Peter, about what I did, it wouldn't have been right to keep it from him, I just wish . . . I don't know what I wish. I'm being stupid."

"Wish things hadn't gone off the rails while you weren't looking?" Allison suggests. Because she wishes that. She often looks at her pack, and although she wouldn't change any of them, it's hard to ignore the fact that they're all in this position due to things her family had done. She stands up, tugging on Scott's hand, and he follows easily. She moves over to the steps and sits down on Stiles' free side, leaving Scott to settle behind them both. Lydia follows, going one step further down so she can lean against Stiles' legs.

"No," Stiles says, "because I _was_ looking. I watched it all happen. It's like being a deer frozen in headlights. You can see it coming, but you can't move, you can't do anything to change what's about to happen. All you can do is wait for the disaster to hit."

"I don't recall you doing nothing," Scott says. "In fact, I recall you doing a whole lot of everything."

"You guys _don't_ know," Stiles says, suddenly pushing away from them and getting to his feet. "You don't know what it's like to hold a syringe in your hand and realize that you're about to _kill_ someone, and that worst of all you don't have _any_ Goddamned choice in the matter if you want to keep your, your family safe." He chokes on the words. "You can't ever understand that so just leave me the fuck alone right now." He turns and stalks off, shoving his hands in his pockets and heading down the road.

They all stare in stunned silence while he walks away. Even Scott stares, because this is not any sort of normal Stiles behavior. He's not sure how to handle it, and makes a low wolf whine in the back of his throat.

This seems to kick Derek back into action. "Fuck." He rubs a comforting hand over Scott's head once and then stands up. Then he strips off his shirt and toes off his shoes. "All of you _stay here_." Socks, pants, and boxers are the next to go, with his usual practical lack of modesty. "We'll be back." While the first sentence is a command, the second is a promise. He shifts to his full wolf form and lopes down the road to make up the distance until he's pacing Stiles silently.

Stiles keeps walking without saying anything, cutting across the road and through a neighbor's yard, over a fence so he's in the woods. He walks for a good five minutes before abruptly sitting down like a marionette whose strings have been cut. Derek has kept up with ease, jumping the fence and letting Stiles lead. When Stiles finally stops, Derek does too, laying down with space between them, although close enough for Stiles to touch him without effort. Stiles had rejected contact earlier, so Derek doesn't really feel comfortable violating that edict. He'll wait for Stiles, and he'll stay in his fur until Stiles is ready to talk, because wolves don't have a lot to say. It'll take the pressure off. So he lies there on the forest floor, watching life around him and waiting.

"I still dream about it," Stiles finally says. "Not about _doing_ it. I have these . . . dreams where I'm on trial." He hunches up into an even smaller ball. "Where you're sitting on the witness stand dressed all in black. You look at me and say 'Yes, that's the person who killed my uncle.' And my dad. Up in his sheriff uniform. Testifying against me. Except he won't look at me. And whenever I'm referred to as his son, he just says he doesn't have a son."

Derek shifts back to his human skin and pulls his knees up, resting his arms across them. He doesn't turn to face Stiles. Given what he had just said, he doesn't need anyone staring at him. "You didn't kill my uncle. Kate did. It was hard to see that at the time, but you were right when you told me that he wasn't my uncle. He had his face, and his smart mouth, but all the love, the patience . . . so many good things had just been burned away. Kate did that. Not you. What was left was something that I don't think Peter would have wanted to be." He's quiet for a moment. "And your dad? I don't think you're capable of doing anything that would make him give you up."

"I know," Stiles says. "I just feel like maybe sometimes he should." He shrugs a little. "This is so stupid, right? I mean, it was how many months ago now? But I just can't forget it. I try to, but I can't. And then, having to tell someone else, having to see the look on his face . . ."

"It's not stupid," Derek says. "And I don't see why you should have to get over it, or forget about it. You were forced to take someone's life. That's not a small thing. People don't just . . . get over things. You and Scott have both pointed out how he isn't over how his father treated him and his mother, and that's most likely less traumatic than what happened with Peter. I'm certainly not over what Kate did." Just thinking about it, even now, even with a new pack, and it still makes him want to curl up into a ball and howl for his mother who will never come.

Stiles' gaze flickers over to Derek at this, feeling the emotional undertones. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and then leans against Derek's shoulder, letting him have the physical comfort he had earlier denied them both. "I know. It's just . . . I'm the alpha. I'm responsible for all of you. I kind of have to have my shit together, you know? And I don't. That scares the shit out of me."

Derek relaxes some, letting his cheek rest against the top of Stiles' head. "You didn't ask to be alpha, so you can cut yourself some slack." Despites his words, he understands. He had the same thoughts. That he was the acting alpha and had to be perfect. Stiles was the one who had called him on it. "None of us expect you to be without flaws. But we can watch out for you if we know what you need help with." He's quiet for a minute. "It's one of the ways we're different from real wolves. We want to protect our alpha as much as he or she wants to protect us."

"Yeah." Stiles shifts a little. "I just don't want to lose you, any of you, lose _this_. And Isaac . . . what if I've frightened him off? He fits, he doesn't think he does yet, but he does. He could be a part of this. But what if he doesn't want anything to do with us because I killed someone?"

"You didn't frighten him off," Derek assures him. "He liked that I told him it was an extreme situation and we knew that. He was watching all of us, but especially you and your dad. I could smell the . . ." Derek tries to think of the right word. "If 'want' has a scent, it was all over him."

"Longing," Stiles says, and heaves a sigh. "I guess we'd better get back, then, before he and my dad finish their little powwow."

Derek nods. "Lydia's right, though. He won't press charges."

Stiles lifts his hands in surrender and says, "That's between him and my dad. No way am I getting involved in that."

Derek nods again. "And just so we're clear? You're a good alpha."

Stiles actually turns pink as he gets to his feet. "What, I don't even, you're just trying to embarrass me."

Derek looks up at him like he's a loony. "I'm telling you because I wanted you to know." He gives a grin that's all teeth. "The fact that you blush like a schoolgirl is just an added bonus."

"Yeah, well, at least I'm not naked," Stiles shoots back smartly, if a little nonsensically.

"What's wrong with being naked?" Derek asks, getting to his feet.

"Walk out of the forest and down the street with me past my neighbors like that, and you'll find out."

"I already did. It's not like wolves wear clothing," Derek says, managing to keep a straight face.

Stiles just gives him a smile and says, "This wolf will be wearing a collar and a leash if he doesn't behave himself."

With that, Derek shifts and play snaps at Stiles' heels. Stiles laughs a little and then starts jogging back the way they came. His jog is a little faster than it used to be, although Derek certainly has no trouble keeping up, and he makes it back to the porch before his father is done talking with Isaac. He rubs his hands over the back of his head when he sees the other three still sitting on the porch steps, clustered together. "Sorry, uh, sorry for losing my shit. I'm okay now."

Scott gives him a critical look and takes a deep breath in through his nose. He and Derek might not always get along, but the older man had been teaching Scott to make use of his senses in ways that aren't noticeable or socially awkward. Stiles doesn't smell so upset anymore, though he can pick up traces of tears and the small endorphin rush that comes with the release of tension. It's hard to tell with Derek. Derek always smells of pain, just in varying levels. Someday he won't anymore, and on that day, Scott has resolved to throw a party. "You sure?" he finally asks.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," Stiles says. "I just had to get it out of my system."

He's saved from further awkwardness when the front door opens and his father pokes his head out. "You'd better get back in here before Isaac and I eat all of your lasagna, guys."

Scott opens his mouth to ask if everything's okay, but then thinks better of it. Stilinski will tell them anything they need to know. He and Allison stand up to go inside. Derek reaches up and snags his clothes with his teeth from where someone has draped them over the rail, ready to drag them inside with him. There's a firm rule about not being human-naked on the front porch. He ignores his boots and socks, willing to go barefoot for a little while. Stiles is a little slower to move, but then reaches out to Lydia. She gives him a winning smile and puts both her hands in his, letting him pull her to her feet and into a quick embrace, holding on for a few seconds before letting go.

Isaac looks up as they all troop back into the kitchen and blurts out, "Holy shit!" The words are completely involuntary and just fall out of his mouth when the giant wolf walks into the kitchen with everyone else, trailing clothes from its jaws. Isaac slaps a hand over his mouth. It must be twice the size of any German Shepherd he's ever seen. It turns his way and makes a huffing, sneezing noise at him, before moving on.

"Dude," Stiles says, aiming a kick that comes nowhere near Derek's tail, "don't laugh at him. That's not nice. I said the exact same thing when you first did that to me."

"And you're not allowed to laugh at people when you're carrying your own boxer shorts in your mouth," Lydia adds primly, taking her seat at the table.

Derek dumps his clothes in his chair and shifts. "You take all the fun out of life," he says, calmly beginning to redress. Isaac stares, purely out of surprise.

Stiles shakes his head and says to Isaac, "You'll get used to it. Or at least learn how to take pictures for bribes and/or blackmail while he's not paying attention."

"You say that like he cares," Allison remarks.

Scott takes pity on Isaac and says, "Derek was never taught to be body shy. And since he came from a family of werewolves and people shifted forms all the time, clothing was optional at home."

"Good to know," Isaac says. He shoves some lasagna in his mouth to buy himself time while everyone gets settled. He's actually a bit glad for the distraction. It cuts down on the awkward transition from private conversation back to group. He chews and swallows. "So, actual, full-on wolves." He rolls that over in his mind. "That's awesome."

"There's an in-between shift, too," Lydia says. "Mostly human but with some wolf features. It looks . . ." She wrinkles her nose. "Kind of silly. But it's the best if you're trying to do human things, but you want the added strength or speed of the wolf."

"And for opening cans if you've lost your can opener!" Allison says brightly.

"Really?" Sheriff Stilinski says. "Huh. I'll have to remember that. Putting Scott to work, are you?"

Scott is now making a frowny, pouty sort of face. Allison is nearly laughing. "Yep! Helpful for yard work, too."

"Hold up, I should be writing this down," Stiles says, grabbing for his phone. "101 Ways it's Cool to be a Werewolf . . ."

"I hate you," Scott says, beaning him with a wadded-up napkin.

Stiles just grins at him, then turns to Isaac. "Come up with any more questions?"

Isaac shakes his head. "I'm sure I'll have more, but none right now."

"Okey dokey. Then I propose . . ." Stiles gives a dramatic pause. "That we see who can accurately identify the most Princess Bride quotes as a means to decide who gets to be alpha after me."

"The what?" Derek asks around his mouthful of garlic bread.

Allison chokes. Lydia stares. Scott's head whips around towards the other wolf so fast that they can hear the creak. "What!"

"You've never seen The Princess Bride?" Stiles asks, his jaw partly open. Even his father seems taken aback.

"Dude, even I've seen that movie," Isaac agrees.

"Laura liked action flicks . . .?" Derek tries.

Stiles turns to his father and says, "Dad, I know you have rules about eating in front of the TV, and generally you know I even _agree_ with your rules about eating in front of the TV, but in some circumstances . . ."

Grinning, his father waves him off. "Go," he says, and Stiles' butt is out of his seat a millisecond later. He grabs Derek by the collar and starts tugging him out of the room. Derek resists long enough to make sure he has his plate and fork. The others all get up as well, and Scott grabs Stiles' plate and silverware, while Lydia carefully balances both their drinks, since she's done eating.

Allison stops by Isaac when he seems uncertain, with her own dinner balanced in her hands. "Come on. We don't bite unless asked," she says, and waits for him to carefully gather up his plate and glass before leading him into the living room.

* * *

Isaac really isn't sure how he had made it down from the second story bedroom window without killing himself or breaking an ankle, but he had. He's pretty sure he twisted it, though, because halfway to the Stilinski house, the adrenaline had worn off and it had started to hurt. The new bruises and small cuts on his hands from 'cleaning up the kitchen', which really meant cleaning up all the broken glass his father had strewn around, hurt too. He shifts the position of his duffel bag and keeps walking anyway. He's also praying that Sheriff Stilinski had meant it when he had said he could stay in their guest room, because he's completely screwed when his father finds out that he's run away.

The police cruiser is again parked outside the front door. The sun has been set for some time; it's past the dinner hour, and getting a little chilly. He takes a deep breath and rings the front doorbell. Stiles opens it a few moments later. "Hey, Isaac, come on in," he says, standing back. "Man, you should've called to let me know you were coming. I was just about to leave for Scott's."

Isaac eases past him, leaving plenty of space between them. "The phone wasn't really an option. It's downstairs where my father is."

"Ooh, gotcha," Stiles says. "I guess I think of everyone having a cell phone. Even Derek has one. So what's up?"

"Your dad asked me to think about everything you and the others offered. To take my time. And I did." Isaac shifts nervously. "I'd like to be part of your pack. I can't just keep living with what I have now that I know there's something, someone better." He pauses, takes a breath, and starts babbling. "And I know it seems sort of impulsive given the way I look right now, but I had already decided before I, before Dad . . . I was going to talk to you tomorrow, and I – "

Stiles lifts his hands to slow Isaac's torrent of words. "Okay," he says. "We're cool. You're in. Now breathe, before you pass out."

Isaac stops and stares at Stiles for a minute, letting his words sink in. He sniffles and then rubs at his eyes with the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt. "Sorry. I'm not usually all . . . weepy."

"Heh, no worries," Stiles says. "We all have days like that. Derek talked to you about how he's not one hundred percent sure he can turn you, right?"

Isaac nods. "I'll take my chances."

"Okay. But what I want you to understand is that you're pack, now. This?" Stiles gives a little twitching gesture with his fingers as if to indicate some invisible bond between them. "This is not going away. Whether the bite turns you or not. Got it?"

"Thanks," Isaac said, nodding again. "I mean, just . . . thanks."

Stiles just grins at him. "So, are we going to Scott's, or what?"

"Sure," Isaac says. "Can I drop my bag off somewhere?"

Stiles hesitates. "We'll probably sleep at Scott's tonight. I was planning to, at least. So you'll want to bring it with you, I guess."

"Okay. My dad is going to figure out that I took off soon. I don't know what he'll do then."

Stiles' eyes narrow. He looks at the black eye that Isaac is sporting, to the way he's carefully not putting any weight on his left ankle, to the tiny little cuts on his palms. "My dad said you had agreed to a couple things about your dad. Maybe we should do those before we go to Scott's."

Isaac looks down and away, clearly not liking the idea, but then he squares his shoulders and looks back up. "Yes, I did. Might as well get it over with."

"Good man," Stiles says, reaching out as if to clap him on the shoulder but then thinking better of the idea. He turns and goes further into the house, finding his dad sitting at the kitchen table with some files spread out in front of him and his reading glasses on. "So," he says, "Isaac's here. Guess there's some shit that's gotta be done."

Sheriff Stilinski looks up. His gaze lands on Isaac and his eyes narrow a little as he takes in all the damage. Then he nods. "Isaac, good to see you again."

Isaac isn't sure what to make of the adult scrutiny that he knows for once won't end badly for him, so he just holds still under it. "Sir."

After a long moment, Stilinski closes the folder that he's been working on. "Stiles, do you know if Scott's mom is going to be home tonight?"

"I think so." Even Stiles seems a little edgy right now, after seeing the look on his father's face. "I mean, Scott didn't say that she was working, and he'll usually let us know if we're going to be on our own at night so we can bring the booze and – kidding, Dad, totally kidding."

Isaac's eyes shift from Stiles and his sudden burst of nervous energy, back to Sheriff Stilinski, wondering, trying desperately to work out, what about the situation has changed.

"Okay. Why don't you two head on over to Scott's place. Ask Melissa if she'll get Isaac patched up and document his injuries – she'll know what to do. Isaac, I'll let your dad know that you're going to be staying with us tonight."

Isaac rubs at his nose with the back of his wrist. He doesn't really like the idea of letting someone get that close to him, let alone taking photographs, but he had agreed. And Stiles is acting tight and nervous and it's making him not want to argue. "Dad might not . . . I snuck out through my bedroom window. I don't know when he'll figure it out."

"Don't worry about your father," Stilinski says. "I'll take care of that."

Not quite sure what to do with that, Isaac falls back on politeness. "Yes, sir."

"Okay!" Stiles says. "You have fun with that, Dad. We're going to go crash at Scott's place. I'll see you after school tomorrow."

Stilinski nods and says, "Don't forget to finish that history paper you've been putting off because it's boring. And don't stay up until midnight again. I don't want to hear that you were falling asleep in class."

"You got it," Stiles says breezily, and waves over his shoulder, heading out of the room. Isaac nearly trips himself with the speed at which he follows. Stiles grabs a backpack that's been sitting by the door and heads out to the Jeep, getting behind the wheel. Once they're on the road, Stiles says, "Well, that was interesting."

It takes Isaac a minute to respond. He has to remind himself that he did this so he doesn't have to feel like he has to be quiet all the time. He may have one sort of deal with the sheriff and another with Stiles and the pack, but he has a deal with himself, too. That's enough to unstick his tongue. "What was? Specifically? And why were you suddenly all nervous?" Did he need to watch out from an entirely new direction? He hadn't thought so. He had watched Stiles and his father pretty carefully, and Stiles never flinched, twitched, or tried to avoid his father. They seem to get along. They seem to like physical contact.

There's a pause before Stiles answers, and when he does, it's with more honesty than Isaac would have expected. "I worry about him," he says. "His job, you know, it can be dangerous. He was hit by a car last year – you probably heard about that, right? Well, what you didn't hear is that it wasn't an accident. It was someone trying to shut him up after he had witnessed them committing a crime." Stiles taps his fingers at the steering wheel. "So when I see that look on his face, that look that means, 'I'm going to go in there and do my job and do whatever I need to do', it makes me a little twitchy." Tap, tap, tap. "Plus I've had a lot of Adderall."

Isaac takes a minute to digest this. "Your dad will be fine," he finally says. "He . . . my father might, _will_ yell, and he might throw some things, maybe, but I doubt it. That would be assault of an officer. I'm not worth getting arrested over." He's quiet for another minute, hunching his shoulders together, and looks out the window. "He'll be angry, but he'll save it all for me if he can. It's my fault that your dad is going over there, after all."

"I wonder what he'll say when my dad makes it pretty clear that he's not going to get the _chance_ to take it out on you," Stiles says, glancing over at Isaac as he stops at an intersection.

There's another long minute of quiet. He looks over at Stiles, _stares_, feeling suddenly limp with relief. He sags back into his seat as the tension leaves him. This is real. These people are taking him in and they aren't going to let his father hurt him anymore. He opens his mouth to say thank you or something, anything appropriate, he doesn't know what, but what falls out is completely nonsensical. "Everyone is going to have crooked graves and the sod is going to be all fucked up. Dad's too impatient to do it right."

Stiles gives a little shrug. "They're dead. They won't care."

"But their families do." Isaac just continues to stare straight ahead. "The time I fell into the grave and Derek pulled me out? It was Allison's aunt's grave."

"Then your dad can hire a competent employee like the rest of the freakin' world," Stiles says. "Uh, and . . . best not to talk about Kate. There's some backstory I should probably give you there, but it's kind of complicated. Let's just put it this way: as you've probably gathered by now, Allison's from a family of werewolf hunters. She's part of our pack because she fell in love with Scott. The rest of her family . . . not so cool with the werewolf thing. Kate did some nasty shit, and so . . . yeah, let's just not talk about Kate while the others are around."

"Okay," Isaac says. "It's not like I really have any feelings about her. I didn't know her. And talking about falling in her empty grave would make Allison uncomfortable. People are like that. I just . . . life is funny, you know?"

Stiles glances over at him and gives that friendly/feral smile. "Dude. I am the human alpha of a _werewolf pack_. I am pretty much aware that life is funny."

"True." Isaac's quiet for a minute. "Thank you. For . . . for everything."

Stiles pulls up in front of Scott's house and parks the Jeep off to the side. "Thanks for not running away screaming."

"Why would I?" Isaac asks, his hand on the door but not actually making any move to get out of the Jeep. If he hadn't panicked at Derek lifting a backhoe, he didn't think dinner would do it.

"Uh, leaving aside naked Derek, Allison and Lydia acting out the fencing scene during The Princess Bride using plastic lightsabers, and Scott and Allison actually making out for fifteen minutes without stopping to draw breath, how about the fact that I admitted to straight-up murdering a guy?"

"Well, the naked guy was explained and also, completely eclipsed by the huge freakin' wolf. I'll admit to being startled that the prom princess of the school can fence, but I'm used to Allison and Scott making out. She comes to practices sometimes." Isaac stops and thinks about the murder, since that's clearly the sticking point. He rubs at his nose while he thinks. "Derek said it wasn't normal. That's not how things should work, so it's not something I have to be afraid of happening again. And your dad didn't even blink, but he _did_ try to make you feel better, so I'm guessing it sucked for you. Not something you're going to take up as a hobby."

Stiles glances at him and then says, "With practicality like that, you're going to fit right in around here." He gets out of the Jeep and heads for the house.

Isaac follows, taking his bag with him. "I dig graves. Or did. It doesn't pay to get emotional."

"It's not that we're not emotional," Stiles says. "I have emotions all over the place. It's just . . . we don't let them stop us from doing what we have to do."

Isaac nods. He can understand that. It's a way to survive. "Sometimes if you let the emotions win, all you do is freeze up." He snaps his mouth shut a moment later. People don't need to know that about him. About how his father can turn him into a deer in headlights.

"Exactly," is all Stiles says in reply, and then opens the front door and goes into the McCall house.


	4. Chapter 4

_So much cuddling and bonding! That is why I wrote this fic._

_Also to make jokes about Derek being an artist._

* * *

Chapter Four

Scott and Allison are sitting at the kitchen table, doing their homework and most likely playing footsie. Lydia is in the living room, sitting on the floor with a sheaf of papers on the coffee table and a notebook that she's scrawling in. They all look up when the door opens, and immediately, three smiles bloom on the three faces when they see Isaac's there too. Scott is the first to notice the black eye, and the smile fades a little, but then they're all saying hello and greeting Stiles and greeting Isaac, though with a little more space between them.

Isaac didn't actually expect everyone to be there, so he's a little startled to see Allison and Lydia. Lydia looks back and forth between Isaac and Stiles before turning fully to Stiles and saying, "Do we get to keep him?"

Scott, meanwhile, is peering at Isaac critically now. At his black eye and cut hands, and the shift in weight off one foot. Isaac isn't sure what to make of all this focused attention. Then Scott turns and pulls out a kitchen chair. "Sit." Then he's off filling a bag with ice and wrapping it in a towel. Isaac, feeling a little overwhelmed, turns to Stiles.

Stiles gives a shrug. "Fussing. They have that right. You're pack now. Yes, Lydia, we get to keep him." He holds his hands up to still any excitable chatter and says, "But Scott, we need your mom to take a look at him before we actually patch him up. She here?"

Scott stops cold. Having his mom take a look made this an entirely different ball of wax. None of Isaac's injuries were bad enough to need medical skills beyond Scott's own decent and increasing first aid know-how. If they were, he would smell the blood and hurt. So calling his mother in had a different purpose, one most likely involving her status as a legally licensed medical professional. "Yeah. I'll go get her."

Stiles shakes his head, just a tiny bit. "We'll go hunt her down," he says, wanting to get Isaac away from the others questioning gaze, at least for a minute, and find Melissa in private. Isaac is obviously feeling a little bit crowded. It's pack, and he'll get used to it, but he needs some breathing room. "I bet she's upstairs pretending that she's doing something useful, right?"

"Oh my God, don't let her hear you say that!" Scott shoves the ice pack at Stiles. "I think I hear her in her room." He tries not to listen in on his mother. It's not polite. Of course he does, at times, find her heartbeat comforting.

Giving him an unrepentant grin, Stiles waves for Isaac to follow him up the stairs. Melissa is indeed upstairs, but she's actually straightening up Scott's room (and possibly snooping around, as mothers are wont to do). "Hi, Ms. McCall," Stiles says, poking his head into the room and scanning for possible baseball bat attacks. "Got a sec?"

"For you, Stiles, more like a second and a half," she says, straightening up from where she's folding Scott's laundry. She spots Isaac and blinks several times.

"Sooooo," Stiles says, and launches right into it. "This is Isaac Lahey, he's our newest pack member, and Dad asked me to have you document his injuries and then patch him up, because he wants Mr. Lahey's balls nailed to a tree."

Isaac, like any sane male, winces at that comment. "That's still my dad, you know. And, uh, the Sheriff promised there would be no pressing charges." He says it like he wants to make sure nobody changed the rules on him. Because if they have, all bets are off. No one is to be trusted then. "I agreed to photos. That's it."

"Yeah, no, sorry," Stiles says. "That was just my own temper slipping through, and I should keep it in check. Photos. So if your dad tries to kick up a fuss that we're taking custody of you, we can blackmail his ass. That's all."

This gains a stare from Isaac. That Stiles had lost his temper like that _on his behalf_. People don't do that for him. But he swallows everything down and nods once, now that he's been reassured that the rules haven't been changed on him.

Melissa makes a shooing motion at Stiles, who hesitates and gives Isaac a questioning look, a 'would you rather I stay?' look.

Isaac shakes his head. "Can I get away with taking photos of myself in a mirror?" he asks. Maybe then Ms. McCall won't have to stay either.

"Sorry, honey," Melissa says, in her mother voice. "That's not going to cut it."

"I'll be downstairs," Stiles tells Isaac, and leaves the room.

It's been a long time since Isaac has heard a 'mother' voice, and he doesn't really know what to do with it, so he tries not to fidget. "What do you need me to do?" He's intent on having this over with as quickly as possible.

Melissa gesture for him to follow her out of Stiles' bedroom and into master bathroom off of her own bedroom, where she has a first aid kit. Then she takes out her phone. She watches the way he's walking and holding himself and then says, "Are you comfortable taking your shirt off? Because I'm betting you have some bruises underneath it."

Isaac just nods in basic agreement and strips off his shirt without complaint. There are bruises, both old and new. Several on his arms that look like they were made by hands, a couple of blotchier ones on his torso. He points to one and says, "I can only blame that one on him. The other two are from lacrosse."

Melissa smiles at him before taking a few pictures and then gently feeling along his ribs for any breaks or fractures. "Seems like every boy in school is on that lacrosse team. Do you enjoy the game?"

Isaac lets her, knowing that she isn't going to find any. At least, not this time. "Yeah. For the most part. I'm a midlevel bench warmer. The best of both worlds."

Melissa has him hold his hands out so she can get some pictures of the cuts, and then checks his ankle. "Just a minor sprain," she says, picking up the ice pack that Stiles had brought with him and applying it to the joint. It's clearly too late to do much about the swelling on his face. She makes a few notes on her phone and then says, matter-of-fact, "Well, if you respond to the bite anything like Scott did, you may be MVP next year."

"I think Jackson would shoot us both," Isaac says. "And the ankle I did myself when I, uh, snuck out of the house."

"No one has to know that but you and me," she says, getting a few snapshots of the blackened eye.

After he puts his shirt back on, he ventures a look at her. "So . . . you know about all this werewolf stuff, too?"

"Yeah," Melissa says. "Not at first. Scott hid it from me for a while because he was afraid I'd freak out, which of course I did . . . but now I know. You're in good hands." She takes out the first aid kit and begins dabbing at the cuts with antiseptic.

Isaac holds his hands unflinchingly still for her. "Do everyone's parents know?" Before she can reply, he says, "I guess everyone except Lydia's. Stiles explained a little about Allison's family, and Derek's, uh, not a secret."

Melissa gives a little nod. "Lydia maintains her right to privacy where her parents are concerned. They're not involved so it doesn't really seem to matter." With a mischievous glint in her eye, Melissa adds, "And it makes me feel better to know I'm not the last to know."

This startles a small smile out of Isaac, and he doesn't quite know what to do with it. Fortunately, Melissa is busy taping gauze over one of the bigger cuts on his palm and she doesn't seem fazed by his silence. She applies a Band-Aid to one or two others and then says, "Okay, bucko, you're good to go."

Isaac ponders the Band-Aids. He's not used to that. "Thanks," he says, and wanders back the way he had come.

Things have settled down back on the first floor. Allison has finished her homework and is flopped on the sofa with Cosmo. She and Lydia are occasionally giggling over some of the more ridiculous things in it. Lydia is still working on the same sheaf of papers, scribbling things down in a notepad. Scott is plugging away at his math homework, plying Lydia for help when he needs it. Stiles has his laptop out and is typing as Isaac walks back in. He glances up as if to verify that everything's okay, and sees that it is. "Hey, did you eat?" he asks.

Isaac just shrugs. He hadn't actually gotten to eat any of the dinner he had made for himself and his father. At this, Stiles springs out of his chair, almost a 'thank God, something to do' sort of motion, and starts rooting around in the fridge. Isaac follows him slowly, feeling at loose ends. He isn't sure where he fits into this.

Scott watches him move and then says, "Dude, sit down. Don't feel like . . . there's something you _should_ be doing. See, we hang out because . . . we like to be together. Not because this is some important thing we're doing. We just . . . whatever we would be doing in the evening at our own houses, we just do it with the pack instead. So if you want to read, or do homework, or watch TV, just do whatever."

The explanation does make him feel a little better. "I don't really . . . have anything. I mean, a little homework, but . . ." He gives one of his noncommittal shrugs. "I wasn't thinking in that direction exactly."

"If you want something to read, Scott has like eight hundred Star Wars novels," Allison says, not looking up from her magazine, which is hiding her grin.

Isaac turns to Scott and considers this. "You," he says deliberately, "are such a loser. I will take your Star Wars novels." A pause. "Do you have the new Timothy Zahn one?" He hasn't been able to find it at the library, which doesn't appreciate proper geekery.

"Of course," Scott says, laughing. "I'll go grab it."

Stiles puts a sandwich down on the table in front of Isaac, along with a can of Coke. Then he sits down at the computer and fidgets, full of nervous energy, before he starts typing again.

"Thanks." He tries to be polite for a minute or two, but then falls on the food like the teenaged boy that he is. "So . . . you guys do this every night?" he asks, mouth full.

"Not _every_ night, but I guess you could say most nights," Lydia says. "We enjoy each other's company. Sometimes we'll hang out in pairs, like if Allison and I decide to do something girly, or if Stiles and Scott decide they want to play Call of Duty all night long. But . . . wolves are social creatures. Even if we were okay with being alone before, we don't like it so much anymore."

Isaac nods. "Then . . . where's Derek?"

Surprisingly, this is met with a chorus of snickers. Stiles looks up and grins a little, his anxiety temporarily forgotten. "Dude, you have to promise not to say anything, because he thinks we don't know."

"Um . . . okay," Isaac says, now curious.

"He's at his studio," Stiles says, "doing art stuff."

Isaac puts his sandwich down. "Did you just say that _Derek_ is doing _art stuff_?"

This is met with another flurry of laughter. Stiles is nearly choking on it. "I know, I know, right? But he's actually studied art since he was a teenager. He probably creates all these dark, broody paintings to channel his angst. That or he paints bunnies and such. We've seen him sketch once or twice, but he won't admit that he's actually doing, you know, _art_. He thinks we don't even know about the studio, which really proves how good Derek is at deluding himself sometimes."

"Once he even had paint on his face," Allison says, giggling madly. "We just pretended we didn't see it."

"I think you broke me," Isaac states flatly.

"Already?" Scott jogs back into the room and tosses Isaac the book. "Geez, guys, I leave the room for two minutes . . ."

"We were telling him about Derek's secret studio," Lydia says.

Isaac catches the book with a slight smile, and Scott says, "He tries to hide it, as if half of us can't smell the paint on him."

"It's not always paint, he does some wood carving and charcoals and stuff," Stiles says, and then his phone rings and he practically falls out of his chair scrambling to answer it. "Dad?" he says, and then, "Uh huh. Yeah. Okay." A pause. "Wow, really?" A much longer pause. "Okey dokey. Yeah, I'll tell him. No problemo. See you tomorrow. Love-you-bye," he adds, the last part all as one word. Then he tucks the phone away. He heaves an enormous sigh, and Isaac can practically see the tension draining out of him now that he's heard from his father.

"Everything okay?" Scott asks.

"How'd it go?" Isaac asks, almost simultaneously, giving Stiles a somewhat anxious look. He had been trying not to think about what the sheriff was saying to his father. Quite frankly, he's expecting to find most of his worldly possessions as a smoldering heap the next day. He had brought everything he couldn't stand to lose. It was filled with the best parts of his life, rather than clothes. "Why were you so worried? My father isn't really a match for an armed man, I don't think."

"First off, I was worried because I have post-traumatic stress disorder," Stiles says, his tone matter-of-fact. "I just worry about my dad. It's what I do. Secondly, you were wrong about one thing. Your dad _did_ get pissed off enough to throw something. In fact, he threw a beer bottle, which probably made a mess, so he's been arrested."

Isaac's mouth drops open in shock as he thinks back to the two hours he had just spent cleaning the kitchen, and he suddenly blurts out, "If he did that in the kitchen I hope he rots in jail." The kitchen is where the front door opens to; it's where almost any confrontation would have taken place. "I swear to God if he messed up that kitchen floor after all the time I just spent cleaning it, I'm going to punch him in the face and see how he . . ." He closes his mouth and clenches his jaw, looking away, ashamed of having let his temper slip its leash and for dragging things out like that into the light. He stands very carefully and walks out of the room.

He winds up going out the back door and sitting down on a little bench that's next to a couple flower beds. It's a long minute before he hears the door open and he looks up, expecting it to be Stiles, but it's Scott instead. The other teenager sits down on the ground not too far away and gives him a minute of quiet before saying, "You okay?"

"I thought I was." Isaac leans forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at the Band-Aids that Ms. McCall had put on him. "I don't know why it pissed me off so much. It's not like I live there anymore."

"It pissed you off because it was a shit thing to do," Scott says immediately. "My dad used to do stuff like that, too. Once, as a punishment for talking back to him, he made me scrub the front hall with a toothbrush. Then he came in after some hunting trip and just tracked mud all over the floor the next morning. Smirked right at me while he did it, too."

"Yeah. It's just, I don't usually get mad at him. It's sort of futile, you know?"

"Oh yeah," Scott says, the weary voice of experience. "I know."

"If your dad is or was anything like mine, I'm sorry."

Scott shrugs a little. "He never laid a finger on me or my mom, you know? But I think that was partly because Mr. Stilinski had made it really clear that there would be consequences if he did that. I used to, heh," Scott smiles a little, "I used to be a real shit to him. My dad, I mean. I would goad him, trying to get him to hit me. He never slipped up, though. Anyway, not long after the mud incident, my mom threw him out."

"My mom just left. Maybe she saw what my dad was turning into. Who knows? He wasn't always like this." Isaac gives in to that nervous nose rub. "There are eight years between my brother and I. I think, maybe I was a surprise, so I guess I should just be glad I was born at all and that they didn't give me up."

"Maybe this is where you're meant to be," Scott says, with a slight shrug. "I mean . . . here you are, right?"

"Do you believe in that? In things like fate?" Isaac asks, unsure whether he's amused or in awe of that sort of faith.

Scott rubs a hand over the back of his head and gives a somewhat embarrassed smile. "Sometimes the others make fun of me for being the optimist of the group, but I . . . yeah, I guess I do. I mean, if I can believe in werewolves, I can believe in fate, right?"

"Laid out like that, it's hard to argue," Isaac concedes. "I guess it makes everything seem less . . . purposeless."

"I think it helps the others," Scott says. "I mean, let's face it, a lot of awful shit happened to all of us. But it brought us together. And I don't think any of us would trade it. Except maybe Derek. But it's different with him."

Isaac's quiet for a minute. "I have to be honest. I can't for the life of me come up with what set of circumstances would have led this group of people to this situation."

"It's kind of a long story," Scott says, "and I don't mind telling you, but maybe later. We should get back in before the others start to worry. I think Stiles is worried that he upset you earlier."

"Nah, I can manage that without help from anybody else," Isaac says, but he stands to go inside.

"I don't mean with what he said after his dad called," Scott says. "I guess he said something about your dad while you were upstairs? He told us he lost his temper. Which, with Stiles, can mean anything from 'he called him a bag of dicks' to 'he threatened to have him murdered, and meant it'."

"It was somewhere in between." Isaac shoves his hands in his pockets. "I don't know why I got mad or tried to defend my father. At all. Stiles was on my side." His shoulders hunch up a bit. "I'm not used to people paying attention. And when they do, it never goes well."

"It takes a lot of getting used to," Scott agrees, pulling the back door open. "You'll feel like people are breathing down your neck for a while. It'll be awkward. But good-awkward, not bad-awkward. Trust me."

"I'll try to remember that."

Scott just grins at him. "C'mon, I've still got chemistry homework to do, and Stiles has probably long since abandoned the three page paper he's supposed to be writing on Reconstruction for a fifteen page paper on the fact that it's illegal to throw a Frisbee on the beach without a lifeguard's permission."

"It's _what_?" Isaac asks, startled. "I still have chem to do too. But mostly it feels like I'm banging my head against a brick wall."

"I know, right?" Scott lets the door fall shut behind them. "Lydia will help us with it, though. She's about five times better at teaching it than Harris is, not that that's difficult. And Stiles writes papers on the most random shit, don't even ask me."

"Does he turn them in for extra credit?" Isaac asks, baffled. He hesitates as they head back into the living room area. "That's what tonight was about. My chemistry grade. It's too low." He doesn't know why he's telling these people this. Yes, they're offering him a family of sorts, but still, he's offering up a lot of vulnerabilities.

"Dude, no, I sell them online," Stiles says, without looking up from his typing. "And Harris flunks people just for fun. He is such an asshole."

"Maybe I should thank him for the black eye," Isaac mutters. Then he blinks. "Wait, you _sell_ them? Is that what your dad meant when he said he knew about the papers?"

"Uh, yeah," Stiles says. "What else would I do with them? My teachers got really sick of me actually turning them in."

"Now I see what he meant about a life of crime." Isaac sits back down in the chair he had left. "Okay, speaking of Harris," he says, turning to Stiles, "can I ask what his issue is with you? Because he was out to get you for a while, and then there was that public apology, which was scary in its own way . . ."

Stiles cracks a grin. He's much more relaxed now, having heard from his father, and seeing Isaac slowly accepting his place in the pack. "Surprisingly, it's pretty much what it says on the label. My dad had to question him about his role in a crime. He took it personally and decided to take it out on me. All that you probably knew from his little apology there, which he was forced to give by that brief, shining star of a school principal named Gerard Argent. Whom you may remember from his, what, two week tenure? This past winter."

"Vaguely. Why did the principal care that much about . . . wait, Argent?" He turns to look at Allison, who looked up from her magazine at his original question.

"Yeah." She lets the magazine flip down. "He's my grandfather. By an unfortunate quirk of genetics." Her nose wrinkles. "The thing you have to understand about Gerard is that he's the devil. Really. The _devil_. And for a while, he really liked Stiles. Because Stiles is pretty hardcore." She holds out a hand for a high five from Stiles, which he returns long-distance from the kitchen. "So he made Harris apologize."

Isaac looks hopelessly confused, so Stiles says, "Guys, we may as well tell him the whole story. I mean, he's in, so . . ." He gives the room a glance as he says this, looking mostly at Allison. Because while Lydia and Scott had some bad experiences, Allison's family was the bad guy, and that makes it a lot harder for her to talk about.

Allison nods to him and gets off the sofa. "Before Derek gets here and has to listen to it," she says. She takes a seat at the kitchen table and reaches out to take Scott's hand, which he gives to her without hesitation. "I'm not my entire family."

Lydia comes into the kitchen as well, carrying the pages she had been translating with her, and Stiles gets up to give her his seat, since the kitchen table only has four chairs. He would rather be on his feet, anyway, and starts rooting around in the pantry for ingredients to make cookies. "Okay, so, it all started about ten years ago, but for _us_ it started when my dad got a call about a body in the woods . . ."

They tell the whole story, starting there and going through everything that had happened, to the best of their recollection. Parts of it are fuzzy now, which is a blessing, and as they go through it they realize there are some questions that never got answered one hundred percent. The only thing that Stiles leaves out is Derek's relationship with Kate Argent. He figured that out a while back, after a comment here and there that Derek made after a nightmare, but so far even Derek doesn't know that he knows. And it's certainly none of Isaac's business. They take turns, telling things from their own point of view, filling in blanks that the others have, like while Stiles was stuck in the trunk of a car or Scott was unconscious at the vet's office.

It takes a while, and by the time they finish, Stiles has put the first tray of cookies in the oven. Snickerdoodles, because Derek likes them, especially with extra cinnamon. "And so a couple weeks ago we decided that we wanted to add to our pack, strength in numbers, et cetera, and that brings us up to now," he says.

Isaac stays silent through all of the story except to ask for an occasional clarification. Now he says, "After all that, you pick me?"

"So it would seem," Stiles says, amused by the question.

"Wow, did you ever pick a dud."

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him, and Isaac wonders if he's crazy for a moment because he could swear that Stiles' eyes have almost a crimson glow just for a flicker of a second. Then Stiles says, in a mild tone, "Would you care to explain why you think that?"

"My issues are clearly not what you signed up for. Because you didn't know about them." He suddenly wishes that he was having another serious talk with the sheriff, rather than with Stiles. Somehow, he thinks there would be less quicksand involved.

"If you didn't have issues, you never would have wanted to _be_ in the pack," Lydia says, and then does something unexpected – she leans over and wraps her arms around him, putting her head against his shoulder. Isaac makes a surprised noise and shies away, much like a startled animal. Lydia lets him pull away, but doesn't quite remove her arms from around his person. "It's okay," she says. "Really."

Isaac freezes but doesn't pull away any further. Maybe it really is okay. To listen to that same feeling that's been making him talk to these people, the feeling that makes him want to cautiously move towards Lydia instead of away. So he does. Very slowly, always on the lookout for the sort of traps that his father likes to throw out there after luring him into a false sense of security, but he does.

But there are no traps. Lydia just holds him in a firm, warm grip, for a long minute before she releases him and pulls away. Then she smiles at him. He's pretty sure that poems have been, or will be, written about Lydia Martin's smile. "So, I hear you need a little help with your chemistry?" she says.

Isaac nods, feeling numb. Stiles says, "Coming through," and sets a sheet of cookies down on the cooling rack on one end of the table. They smell really good, and Isaac remembers that he never finished the sandwich Stiles had made him. He picks it up and starts eating again. He and Scott take out their chemistry homework and begin working on it. Lydia helps them through it, still working on what she had been doing – Isaac, when he asks, is told that she's translating the bestiary from archaic Latin into English. Stiles alternates between baking and working on whatever ridiculous paper he's writing, until suddenly Isaac realizes it's ten thirty at night, and all of them are yawning. He starts to wonder where he's going to sleep.

Not long after that, Scott pushes his book away. "My brain is melting. I need cookies and sleep."

"You've eaten half a dozen," Lydia points out.

"I'm a growing werewolf," Scott says, his mouth already full. "Hey, Isaac, did you want to sleep in the guest room or crash on my floor?"

Isaac opens his mouth to say guest room. That's the appropriate place for him, since he hasn't known anyone here that long, but the words just stick in his throat. He doesn't want to be cut off from them. The idea makes him squirm. It takes Stiles less than three seconds to pick up on his discomfort and say, "Isaac will sleep in your room with the rest of us." He just puts it out there as a statement, with no room to argue or disagree. Isaac feels the knot of tension inside him loosen, and just nods in agreement.

It takes a few minutes for them to get all their things packed up and ready for school the next day, but gradually, they troop up to Scott's room. Scott hauls a few foam egg crates out of the closet and tosses them on the floor with some blankets and pillows. It's a little haphazard, but everyone seems used to it. Isaac is told that there's a standing rule that the boys shower at night so the girls don't have to kill them for taking up the hot water/mirror/bathroom before school, and Stiles gives him a towel. Scott and Allison get the bed, which makes sense to Isaac, so he claims an egg crate and a sleeping bag and feels like he's getting the hang of this, at least until Lydia suddenly pulls her shirt off.

He isn't sure what noise he makes, but he's sure that he nearly chokes on it. He turns away, but is torn between turning back to stare, because it's _Lydia Martin_, goddess among high schoolers, and covering his eyes, because it's _Lydia Martin_, the likes of which are not meant for mortal eyes. At least he's not alone in his shock for once; Stiles makes a similar noise and says, "Lydia! I've told you not to start throwing your clothes off in front of me! I can't be held responsible for my actions!"

"Oh, please," Lydia says, in an arch tone. There's the sound of clothing being tossed.

"Will someone let me know when it's safe?" Isaac asks the ceiling, and then hears what he can only call a playful yip. He turns around and stares. Lydia, at least he assumes it's Lydia because the fur is highlighted with the same red as her hair, is busy using teeth and paws to arrange a blanket into a round nest. "Wow," Isaac finally says.

"I agree," Stiles says. He's getting his own blankets arranged into something that looks a lot like a normal sleeping area. He glances up and says, "In a minute, Derek's going to come through the window. Don't let it startle you. He just has no manners."

Isaac just blinks at him. A moment later, the window slides up and Derek eels into the room as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do. "I have manners," he says pointedly. "I think it's rude to make Ms. McCall answer the door this late at night when I'm capable of letting myself in."

"You could try not coming in at eleven o'clock at night," Stiles says, but despite his words, he goes right up to Derek, and, hand to God, _snuggles_ him. He just wraps his arms around the older man's waist and presses his face against his chest and _snuggles_. There's no other word for it in Isaac's vocabulary.

"I could try that. If I wanted to." He doesn't sound like he wants to. Isaac watches as Derek looks down at Stiles, and he expects blood and death any moment, but Derek just wraps an arm around Stiles and presses his nose down into Stiles' hair for a moment before looking up. He looks right at Isaac, who manages not to flinch. "Welcome to the pack." Then he starts shuffling Stiles towards the bedroom door.

"Where are we going?" Stiles asks, putting his feet on the tops of Derek's feet so he's resting all his weight on the other man.

"Downstairs so I can have cookies," Derek replies, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. "And get off me," he adds. But he doesn't sound like he thinks it's going to happen, and he doesn't move his arm from around Stiles, either. "You're like one of those weird one-shelled mollusks. That adhere. Lydia will remind me of their name in the morning."

Lydia looks up at this, makes a chuffing noise, and then puts her head back down.

"Limpets," Stiles says. "An' I'm tired. I wanna go to sleep."

"Then you should have brought some up for me," Derek says. Isaac just stares at them and wonders what sort of lottery he had hit that made this suddenly his life. Derek stops at the door and says, "Go lie down. I'll be back in a minute." Cookies are best fresh, and he is clearly not about to be put off.

"'Kay," Stiles says, and lets him go. He crawls under the blankets as Derek leaves the room.

Isaac blinks and says, "Are you two, uh, I mean, not that it wouldn't be okay if you _were, _I'll just feel kind of stupid for missing it, and – "

Stiles gives him a look, then grins. "No. We just . . . we're just pack. It gets on his nerves, and annoying him is fun!"

"He didn't seem that annoyed," Isaac ventures, wondering why Stiles had hesitated before saying 'just pack'. It's the first time Stiles has hesitated over anything he's said all night. So maybe it isn't the truth. But at the same time, even though they're very physical with each other, even though they clearly missed each other, they had never kissed, either. Scott and Allison couldn't go ten minutes without a kiss on the mouth. Stiles and Derek just didn't do that sort of thing.

"Nah, I'll be honest," Stiles says, after another pause. "We do that because of our trauma. We just . . . _need_ more than the others. More reassurance. More comfort." He says this while studying the clock on the wall. Lydia is in her wolf form, and Allison mysteriously disappeared when Scott went to take his shower, so Isaac is the only other 'person' in the room right now. "So, you know. That's why we do what we do."

Isaac gives a little shrug. "What am I going to say? I'm pretty sure that Lydia gave me the first hug I've literally had in years tonight. I'm not the poster-child for well-adjusted."

"Yeah." Stiles glances over and then gives him a smile. "Thanks," he says, and flops backwards against his pillow.

"No problem." Isaac shuffles down to make himself comfortable on the corner of the egg crate, grateful to be in the same room as everyone else but with enough space so that he doesn't feel crowded. Lydia's nest is about four feet to his right, in the corner, and Stiles is on his other side, with enough space so that even if Derek settles between them, there will still be plenty of room. Scott and Allison come back a few minutes later, the former wearing only his boxer shorts and the latter also in boxer shorts and a little tank top. Isaac manages not to stare, but it's close. They are going to make beautiful babies someday.

Not long after that, Derek comes back in, clearly licking cookie crumbs off his fingers. "Stiles, you're gonna make us fat," he says, and he steps over and around everyone else on the floor to close the curtain on the window, hang his leather jacket over Scott's desk chair, then efficiently stripping off the rest of his clothes.

"You're the one who told me to get better coping mechanisms," Stiles says. He sounds smug.

"Your response to that was to learn how to shoot a gun and hunt werewolves," Derek retorts.

"Yeah, dude, the cookies were a pre-existing condition," Scott adds, somewhat muffled from the blankets and Allison's shoulder. Isaac sort of wishes that Derek was muffled by at least a scrap of clothing.

"You guys could try doing something radical like not eating a dozen in one sitting," Allison suggests, giggling.

Lydia lets out a snort, clearly conveying her opinion on their ability to manage that.

"We do that because they're better fresh," Derek delivers this proclamation and then shifts into his wolf form so people can't continue to argue with him. Stiles just snickers, knowing damned well that he's doing it to get out of the argument, but waits for him to get settled before nestling right next to him, loosely curling a hand in Derek's fur. Isaac gets only a quick glimpse of that before Scott rolls over and turns out the lamp by his bed, and they're left in darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

_This chapter is super long because there was just no good place to break up this scene. So happy Sunday and all that. :)_

_Also somewhat triggery for child abuse, claustrophobia, and PTSD._

Chapter Five

Isaac wakes up slowly at first, and then with an adrenaline producing start. He has the immediate feeling that his alarm hasn't gone off, or something about the world is off kilter. Then he realizes that he's at Scott's house.

Somewhere in the night, he apparently kicked his blankets off. His face is pressed between two red-grey pointed ears, and his arm was hugging a wolf close, as if it, as if _she_, were a large plush animal. Lydia appears to be using his other arm as a pillow, her blanket nest abandoned. Isaac also finds that his legs are pinned down by one of Stiles' legs, who's asleep on his stomach, spread out like a starfish. Derek has his front paws and head resting on the small of Stiles' back. Isaac considers going back to sleep in self-defense.

Before he can, though, he realizes what woke him – Allison has gotten out of bed and is moving around the room. There's light coming in around the windows, so he looks around for a clock. It's a few minutes after six in the morning. Allison picks up a small pile of clothing she's left beside the bed and leaves the room, gently closing the door behind her. A minute later, he hears water running in the bathroom next door.

It's a little bit hard to believe that he's just going to get up and go to school soon, like everything's normal. So far, yesterday evening and this morning seem completely surreal to him.

He dozes a little; pinned down like he is, there isn't much else to do. Without having to get up and make breakfast for his father, then walk to school, there's no need to rush. About fifteen minutes later, Allison comes back in, dressed in jeans and a pretty sweater. She leans over and rubs Lydia behind the ears. Lydia lets out a yawn, showing an impressive set of teeth, and then gets up and begins to untangle herself from the pile.

Isaac watches her impressive stretching routine: first front legs, then back, her spine bowing. He knows he's staring, and he knows it's Lydia, classmate, apparent chemistry whiz, owner of a billion pairs of shoes, but at the same time she's a _wolf_. How many teenaged guys get to watch wolves less than a yard from them, without any protective barriers, and not have to fear for their lives or limbs or that the wolf will run away? Also, he had somehow ended up hugging her during the night. He's in a state of silent awe. At least until she shifts. Then he chokes, because he couldn't help but get an eyeful before he presses his face into the egg crate. He feels it dip and rise around him as she steps over him on the way to the door, and thinks that he may just have to die there.

Before he can expire, however, Scott's alarm clock goes off, blaring something by The Rolling Stones. He startles a little, and then hears Scott groan. Allison's laughing at him, clearly without any sympathy. Derek raises his head, but Stiles just snoozes on. Derek shuffles off of Stiles and tries to wedge his head underneath him, in an effort to escape the alarm, or at least muffle it. Stiles mutters, "Cut it out, that tickles," or at least something that sounds vaguely like that, and then rolls over onto his side, his entire body curling around the wolf. Derek decides he'll take it, pressing the side of his head and one ear into Stiles' chest with a sigh.

"I need a camera," Isaac says, watching this.

Scott lets out a snort of laughter, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Dude, we have _albums_ of this kind of thing."

"Unfortunately, none of us are spared," Allison adds. "Ms. McCall and Papa Stilinski like to send each other photos."

Isaac can see why. Reluctantly, he climbs out of bed and rummages around in his backpack for a set of clothes. Scott's already getting dressed. He wonders when he'll get used to the lack of modesty, or even better yet, start to feel it himself. Once Scott has his clothes on, he walks over and starts nudging Stiles in the ribs. "Hey. Dude. School."

"Mmphhrff," Stiles replies, hiding his face in the pillow.

Derek heaves a sigh and pulls away from Stiles to flop over not far away. Isaac gets the impression that he won't be persuaded to get up until there's coffee.

"Lydia, put some clothes on," Allison says, which strikes Isaac as a little odd because Lydia's not in the room, but then Stiles is sitting bolt upright, sputtering. He sees that Lydia isn't actually there, and then gives Allison a narrow-eyed look. She just smiles back cheerfully. Isaac is getting the impression that she's the only morning person in the room.

Isaac looks at Allison and realizes that she may be sort of evil. He's glad she's on his side. He resists the urge to lie back down. "Is there coffee? Can I swim in it?" He's still pretty exhausted after everything.

"I started the coffee maker since I was the first one up," Allison says.

"It's a sacred responsibility," Scott agrees.

Isaac can feel himself smiling at her stupidly. "You are an amazing person."

Allison just laughs in response. "I do my best."

"Amazing," Scott agrees, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. Stiles makes a gagging noise as he finally climbs to his feet and starts shuffling around like a zombie in search of clothing and caffeine.

Lydia comes back in, immaculately put together as always. "Well, I see almost everybody is awake," she says, in a very pointed manner.

Derek heaves a sigh and climbs to his feet, then shifts and pulls his clothes from the day before back on. "I already did high school once. I don't see why I should be tortured again."

"Screw you, asshole, you're going to go home and go right back to sleep," Stiles gripes.

"Yes. Yes, I am," Derek says, and smirks. This seems to wake him up. Stiles just continues to grumble, but then they go down to the kitchen. Allison and Scott have cereal and orange juice while Stiles has coffee and snickerdoodles and Lydia has an English muffin sandwich with egg whites and some kind of cheese that Isaac can't pronounce. He helps himself to the coffee and the Honey Nut Cheerios.

Stiles and Allison both have their own car, so it's no trouble getting all of them to school after bidding farewell to Derek. It feels a little strange to part ways after the evening and night together, but Isaac has plenty of school work to keep him occupied. Even the fact that Harris obviously think he copied his chemistry homework off of someone else doesn't dampen his spirits. He feels somewhat awkward approaching the group at lunchtime, though he has no idea why, but they welcome him with their usual enthusiasm.

There's no lacrosse practice on this particular day, and Isaac isn't particularly surprised to find Sheriff Stilinski waiting for them outside after school, leaning on the hood of his cruiser. He waves to the others as they leave the building – Scott has chores to do, Lydia has an appointment at the salon, and Allison says that she needs to go home for a while. So Isaac is left with Stiles and his father. "Figured we would go pick up whatever you need from your house," Stilinski says to him.

Isaac tenses up at the thought of having to go home, but he makes himself nod. He needs his things. His clothes and such. He wants his books and a few other things, too. He took most of his important keepsakes with him when he left the night before, but some of it was on the first floor with his father and couldn't be reached.

"Will he be there?" Stiles asks, as he climbs into the car.

"As of yet, Mr. Lahey has not posted bail after being charged with assault and resisting arrest." Sheriff Stilinski sounds somewhat smug.

"Thanks," Isaac says quietly. "I don't think I could face him."

"I would have made sure he was out of the house for this anyway," Stilinski says.

"You totally egged him on, didn't you." Stiles is ridiculously proud of his father for this. "You went in there and pissed him off on purpose so he would do something stupid."

"Well, I've heard he has quite a temper," Stilinski replies.

"You two are alarmingly alike at times," Isaac says.

"I got all the good genes," Stiles says, leaning back in his seat. His father asks him how school was, to which Stiles is happy to tell him that he did finish his history paper, and it was even mostly about the topic he had been assigned. Isaac doesn't live far from the school, so it's a short drive.

Isaac uses his key to let them in and stops cold to stare at the shattered glass and mostly dried beer spattered across the kitchen floor for a long minute. Then he kicks the largest part viciously, hard enough to send it careening into another wall, where it breaks further. "At least he has to clean it up himself this time," he says, and marches through the broken glass to get to the rest of the house.

Stiles is keeping a close eye on him, but although Isaac is clearly upset, it seems like a normal kind of upset, maybe even a healthy kind. "Dad, you can just hang out here; we'll go pack up some stuff for him," he says, and his father nods, sitting down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

Isaac stops in the living room first. There's an actual fireplace there, although it hasn't been used in years, and on the mantle above it there's a small, framed photo of a young man in a military dress uniform who looks reasonably like Isaac. To either side are medals and an American flag folded into a triangle, all of which are also framed. Isaac stands there and bites at his lower lip for a moment. "Fuck it." He reaches out and takes the flag. His father will value the medals more anyway. Those represent achievement. The flag is only loss. He takes it back to the kitchen and sets it on the table, before leading Stiles upstairs.

Stiles isn't a huge fan of the Lahey house. For such a nice neighborhood, it's somewhat neglected, dark and cluttered. The entire place makes him claustrophobic, although that's not particularly unusual for him. Isaac's room is neat, though, if somewhat small. Stiles takes out a stack of paper bags that his father had brought and sets them down on the bed.

"I took most of the stuff I couldn't really bear to leave with me last night," Isaac says. He starts to go through his drawers, unloading the clothes into the bags and dumping what he doesn't really wear onto the floor. He's taking perverse pleasure in making a mess. "But if you want to just grab those books and comics?"

"Sure," Stiles says, and goes over to the bookshelf. They work in silence for a little while, occasionally making trips down the stairs and out to the car.

When they're getting towards the end of his things, Isaac figures he's run out of time to stall. "In the interest of, uh, keeping my deal with your father," he says, facing away from Stiles and with no intention of looking at him, "you may want to tell him to go have a look in the basement." That's all he can stomach saying.

Stiles blinks twice at this somewhat random statement, but he can feel the emotional undertones, the struggle that Isaac's currently engaged in, so he doesn't ask any questions. He just says, "Okey dokey, I'll let him know when I take this bag down to the car," and leaves the room with a bag full of comics and figurines. He's a little perplexed, but figures that Isaac could use some time to gather himself back together. So he drops the bag in the kitchen and says to his father, "Isaac says you should look in the basement."

Just like Stiles, the sheriff is somewhat taken aback by this statement. But also like Stiles, he doesn't argue. He just says, "All right," and gets to his feet.

The door to the basement swings open to reveal a narrow flight of stairs, the kind that are only planks without a second side on the back. Stilinski grimaces a little and says, reluctantly, "Maybe you'd better give me a hand." The hit-and-run was over two months ago, now, and he's almost entirely recovered. But 'almost entirely' isn't the same as 'completely', and the broken ankle still gives him trouble sometimes. This would be a bad time for it to give out. He's still in physical therapy for both that and the broken shoulder blade.

Down is easier than up, so although Stiles watches him like a hawk, he has no trouble getting into the basement. They both look around for a few moments at the piles of junk in the semi-darkness, with no real idea of what Isaac wanted them to see.

It's Stiles who sees it first. It would be, because if his father had seen it, he would have had Stiles go upstairs without him. But it's Stiles who sees the freezer, the lid flipped up against the wall, the scratch marks on the bottom. He walks over to it as if he's in a dream, tries to say something, but doesn't, can't. The world is starting to go gray and fuzzy, darkness crowding around the edge of his vision. He can see Peter Hale closing the lid of the trunk over him, hear his soft laugh as he abandoned Stiles to his fate.

"Stiles?" his father asks, looking over when he sees that Stiles has gone strangely still.

"I . . ." Stiles manages, his brain freezing over, silencing anything that might come out. He's staring at the tracks on the freezer's lid in strange fascination. There's a little smear of blood by one of them. He reaches out and traces it with one finger, his nail colliding with the cold metal.

That's all it takes to break him. He turns and runs, pounding up the stairs. He needs air. He's suffocating. He still dreams about being shut in that trunk. Even now, with all the different fodder his nightmares have, those dreams are always the worst. He wakes up gagging and gasping for breath, choking in his sleep.

He runs past the kitchen and out the front door, going to his knees in the front yard. His stomach goes into full, violent rebellion and he heaves, throwing up his entire lunch onto the grass. Once he's finished retching, he manages to start breathing again, sucking in great lungfuls of the fresh air. It calms him down a little. He's not trapped. He can see the sky, can smell the dirt. His trembling starts to ease, and he becomes aware of his surroundings again. After a long minute, he gets to his feet. He's still shaking so hard that his knees are actually knocking together a little, but he manages to get inside and sit back down at the kitchen table. He just sits there, waiting for the world to start again.

It's only a moment later that his father emerges from the basement, looking grim and a little pale. "Stiles?" he asks, tone worried.

Stiles startles a little and then says, "Did, did you try to take those stairs yourself? You shouldn't have done that, I would've been back in a minute – "

"Yes, I did take the stairs. Very slowly and carefully. And no, you wouldn't have been back. I would have kicked your ass right back up if you had tried." He moves to stand behind Stiles, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him in for a half hug.

Stiles immediately squirms out of his grip. "Sorry, I, I just, feeling a little claustrophobic right now. Sorry."

Stilinski lets go and takes a step back to give him some space. "You don't need to be sorry."

Stiles pushes both his hands back through his hair and says, "No, but I do need to be, to be okay right now. Because Isaac's going to be down here in a second, and . . ."

Stilinski takes the other seat. "And what? He'll find out that the upsetting thing he sent me to see in the basement is actually as upsetting as he feels it is? Because I gotta tell you, kid, I _really_ wish I could press charges. That was . . . horrifying is a good start, if rather mild." To be honest, pressing charges is the least of what he wants to do. Really, he wants to bash Mr. Lahey's head into the wall a few times, just for starters.

"Yeah, but . . ." Stiles manages to square his shoulders and says, "I'm his alpha. It's my job to take care of him. So it's not cool for him to see me like . . . that." He lets out a breath. "I'll go help him finish up. You wanna take that bag of comics and shit out to the car? And then we can get the fuck out of here."

Stilinski leans forward, his elbows on the table, expression serious and earnest. "Can I let you in on a little secret I learned when your mom died?"

Stiles lets out a breath. He wants to say no. He's not sure he can handle it. But it's so rare for his dad to voluntarily talk about his mom, let alone her death. "Sure."

"And it's something that you taught me." Stilinski points at his son with two fingers. "It's possible to take care of someone just fine even while you're hurting, even if you let it show. Because it was hard in the beginning, but I still managed to take care of you. And I couldn't hide how much of a wreck I was." He lets that sit in silence for a few moments before saying, "You just think on that, okay?" He picks up the bag to take to the car, giving Stiles some space.

Stiles watches him go, and takes a few deep breaths to calm his nerves. Then he goes back up the stairs to Isaac's room. He knows his dad is right, but it's still a lot easier said than done. "Hey, you almost done in here?"

Isaac nods. "You were gone a while," he says, his tone somewhat questioning.

"Yeah, I had to help my dad with some stuff." Stiles is amazed that his voice is coming out in what sounds like a normal tone, and that he's still capable of making coherent sentences. He's often surprised by that, really. He needs less trauma in his life.

The answer would have been fine, except Isaac can't think of anything that Sheriff Stilinski would have needed help with. "You . . . didn't go down there with him, did you?"

Normally, Stiles would have told the truth, but the way Isaac said it made him feel like Isaac didn't want him to have seen the freezer. That Isaac didn't want him to know. So Stiles gives a little shrug and says, "He's just a little unsteady on the stairs, so I had to help him up and down." There. It's not a lie, but manages to imply that he didn't actually look around the basement at all.

Isaac nods again, thinking to himself that Stiles needs to see what's in the basement about as much as he needs to see the inside of a car trunk. "Okay, this is the last of it," he says, hefting up another bag. The two of them head down the stairs and out to the car, where Sheriff Stilinski is rearranging things a little to make sure it all fits.

"So where are you guys off to this afternoon?" he asks, once they're back in the car and on the road. "I need to get back to work after this."

"Yeah, just drop us off at home and we'll get all this unpacked. Probably gonna head to Derek's after that," Stiles says.

"Am I on my own for dinner?" He often is when the pack goes to Derek's. Sometimes he can even sneak in a meal that tastes like good, old-fashioned grease.

"There's leftover pork roast and rice in the fridge," Stiles says, "and I expect it to be gone when I get home tomorrow." He knows his dad is too nice to just throw it away, so he'll wind up eating it instead of whatever horrible fast-food concoction he would get if left to his own devices just to avoid hearing Stiles bitch about it.

"Aw, come on, kid," Stilinski flat-out whines.

"And don't forget your vegetables," Stiles says. "There's cauliflower and those honey-glazed carrots. Your choice."

Stilinski wonders if he can give the meal away. There would be less guilt that way. Someone at the station has to appreciate pork roast.

Isaac, for his part, is just trying not to laugh.

"You _like_ pork roast," Stiles reminds him.

"I do. But I also like curly fries."

"Yeah, well, I like your arteries," Stiles says loudly, "so you're banned from fried things until your next cholesterol check. Then we can renegotiate."

"You're a sadist," Stilinski replies, "and if I see another veggie burger, it's war."

At that, Isaac does start laughing.

"Oh, two words, Dad," Stiles says. "Bring it."

Stilinski just chuckles, and they continue to hector each other all the way back to the Stilinski household. Stiles grabs some things to take over to Derek's, including his lacrosse stick, and Isaac packs a bag as well since he's getting the distinct impression that he won't be back at Stiles' house that night. It makes him feel a little less like a nomad, knowing that all the pack is like that, that they just go from house to house and sleep wherever they end up that particular night.

On the way to Derek's apartment, Stiles starts telling Isaac about when he's actually going to be a werewolf – which Isaac appreciates, since he had been wondering. According to Stiles, he's discussed this with Derek and they've decided to wait until the new moon, so the wolfy instincts will be at their lowest point after the turn. That will give Isaac more time to learn how to cope with them before they're at their peak. The day after the full moon would give him the most time, but it would also turn him when his instincts would be running high. They've agreed that this is the best solution.

The new moon is only three days away. Isaac can wait for that. He's part of the pack now, so the urge to become an actual wolf has lessened, although it's certainly still there.

Derek lives in the absolute last place that Isaac would have expected: a large apartment complex on the edge of town. It's several buildings made of brick, connected by walkways with green lawns. The complete normalcy of it gives Isaac a weird feeling. Each building could easily house several hundred people. He's not sure why he pictured Derek living in the woods, but he definitely had.

Stiles parks around the back, and Derek is waiting for them, leaning on the hood of his sleek black sports car. He lifts a hand as he sees Stiles Jeep, and the two of them get out, hauling their things. Stiles walks over and hesitates for just a fraction of a second before continuing over to Derek and sort of bumping their shoulders together.

Isaac has discovered that Derek has sort of a stone face a lot of the time, at least when he's human. He's easier to read as a wolf, when there are signals from his ears and the noises he makes, but when he's on two legs and in a pair of jeans it becomes difficult. Isaac has learned to watch for the little things. Like the tightening of his jaw for a second when Stiles hesitated before making contact. Which means that Stiles flinging himself at Derek is normal, and this is weird. Good to know. That isn't hard to put together, given that Stiles admitted they cuddle up to each other a lot. So something's off, something that Isaac has done or something from his house, because nothing else has happened today. That's awesome. He decides to keep his mouth shut until he can figure out what's happening.

Derek apparently decides to be more vocal. "What happened?" he asks, leveling a gaze at Stiles.

"What? Dude, my hands are full," Stiles says, shrugging this off and heading into the apartment building. "Scott here yet?"

Isaac watches Derek as he inhales through his nose, and then swallows before answering. "Yeah, he got here about ten minutes ago after he finished whatever it was his mother needed him to do." Derek pauses for a minute before saying, as if it makes sense, "I have a nose, you know. And so does Scott, and no matter how much I may mock him, it does actually function." Derek raises his eyebrows at Stiles before turning to face Isaac, his expression becoming a little more friendly. "Come on in. I don't actually make a habit of making pack members stand on my doorstep."

"Uh, sure," Isaac says, following them in.

"You'd look pretty stupid without a nose," Stiles mentions, climbing a flight of stairs. "I mean, remember Voldemort?"

"Oh my God," Derek says, in a way that he's clearly picked up from Stiles. Isaac snickers, relaxing a little.

Derek's apartment is pretty big, and the emptiness of it makes it seem larger than it is. There's hardly any furniture at all in the main room, beyond a table that holds the television and a stack of DVDs next to it. The kitchen has a table and a single chair, which Scott is currently sitting in, doing his homework. There are no pictures on the walls, and no curtains. Instead of a sofa, there are a few piles of cushions and bean bags. A small shelf stood under the window, filled with stacks of paper and cups full of pens or colored pencils. Leaning next to it was an artist's lap desk. Given what had been said about Derek's studio the night before, Isaac decides to pretend he can't see it.

Stiles dumps his stuff in a corner and says hey to Scott, then almost immediately says, "You guys wanna go play some lacrosse? I brought my stick."

Isaac drops his bag next to Stiles. He had brought his lacrosse stick when he saw Stiles grab his own. "Sure."

Derek's eyes narrow a little, but Scott slaps his book shut. "Sure! One of us must have left a stick here that you could use, Derek."

Derek sighs, knowing when he's defeated. It's generally his job to out-stubborn Stiles when it needs to be done, but Scott will sometimes veto him. He's known Stiles longer. "There's one in the closet," he says, and goes to get it.

Stiles is intent on keeping Isaac blessedly clueless about how strained he's feeling, so they go out into the woods and designate a few trees goals. He needs to be outside right now, in the open air where nothing can pin him down. He needs to just breathe and wear himself out. Then he'll be fine. He tells himself this firmly, with no room for question.

Isaac's not actually a werewolf yet, so they appoint him goalkeeper and play one-on-one-on-one-on-one, all three of them trying to score goals and Isaac trying to stop them. It's hard work; Scott is the best player but Derek is faster than he is, and although Stiles' talent at actual lacrosse isn't that great, he's the best with strategy. He can maneuver Scott and Derek against each other and then swoop in and steal the glory. Isaac isn't great in the goal, but he's good enough not to embarrass himself.

The sun is setting by the time they decide to go in. Stiles is dripping with sweat and disgusting, but he feels better. That edge of tension has worn away. Scott is whining about being hungry, so they decide to go back to Derek's apartment and order pizza.

Isaac feels less tense as well, but the need to know what happened, what he did wrong, still nags. He's only been in the pack for two days, less really, and he's already disrupted it. It makes him nervous and guilty, because that's not how he imagined this going, and there's always that quiet voice in his head that wonders if his father's right and he's just a fuckup. He keeps it quiet, though, keeps it pressed down. Stiles seems to be better after the game, and Isaac isn't about to ruin that by asking about it. He comments that it's strange not to have to cook dinner as they order the pizza, but other than that, he's pretty quiet. It shouldn't bother anyone. He's not known for being really talkative.

Scott gets a text during dinner from Allison that states that her parents are insisting she stay home tonight, and Lydia is going to come over. He pouts about this, but they've all agreed that Allison's parents do have the right to have her home on occasion. As long as they don't mind Lydia being there – which is a debatable point depending on the day – nobody objects.

"Damn, Derek, I wish you had an Xbox," Stiles comments as he eats his pizza. "I could really go for some video games right now. I guess I'll play on my computer."

Derek's eyes shift over all of them for a minute, then focus on Scott, who just gives him a shrug. "Or you could just tell us what's wrong." Derek's tone is casual, and so is his manner, but somehow that makes it seem all the more pointed. Isaac sort of wants to leave, to go home maybe, where at least he knows the rules.

Stiles scowls at Derek and says, "Nothing's _wrong_, you asshole, just – just stop trying to – "

"That is a lie." Derek says it flatly and with one hundred percent certainty. It's clear that Scott isn't going to help Stiles escape. "You have two choices. We can continue to talk about this here or we can continue in private, but we _are_ going to talk about it." Isaac thinks that Derek looks about as moveable as a hunk of granite. He can't help but look down and curl in on himself a little. Stiles had been fine before they got to his house. Before he had talked to Isaac with anyone else as a buffer. He's desperately trying to think of what he might have said or done to upset Stiles.

"Hey," Scott says to Isaac quietly. "This isn't about you. Don't . . . don't freak out over there, okay?"

Isaac is about to make some automatic reply when Stiles' gaze snaps over to him and sharpens. Then he slumps against the table and says, "Aw, shit, I was trying to act normal so I wouldn't upset you, and . . . I suck. I just totally, completely, and in all other ways, suck."

Words start falling out of Isaac's mouth almost automatically. "No. It's fine. I'm sorry." He jerks himself back upright and pulls himself together, more or less, or at least made a pretty good show of it. "I'm just not very good at, you know, a lot of things really, so," he raises his hands in surrender, "whatever it was I said or did or whatever this afternoon, I'm sorry." It's time for a dignified retreat. He sets his plate aside so he can stand up. He can make it back to Stiles' house and figure out what to do from there.

"Oh my _God_, dude, this is not your fault," Stiles says, "and you are not going anywhere. Sit down and stop apologizing."

Isaac finds himself sitting with his mouth shut without any real thought behind it. Scott immediately scoots a little closer to him, which is strangely and unexpectedly comforting.

Stiles takes a breath. Lets it out. "I didn't want to talk about it because it's none of their business," he says, "but it isn't your fault. I went into the basement with my father."

Isaac just looks confused. "You said that. You said that he's unsteady on stairs so you . . ." Then the penny drops. "That's not all you did." He winces, hard, almost recoiling at the thought. "I would have _warned_ you if I had known you would go down there. I swear I would have."

"I'm . . . not sure there's a warning for that." Stiles shakes his head. His voice is trembling. "Dude . . . I don't even . . . there isn't anything I can say, beyond expressing my general respect that you are still alive and sane, or at least capable of a facsimile of sane, and . . . it's really not often that you catch me speechless. And . . . if you want to stop talking about this now, I would be totally cool with that."

"Sure, there's a warning for it," Isaac snaps. "Hey, Stiles, don't go looking around the basement. No, seriously, don't. There. Done." Isaac flops over backwards onto either a pillow or the bare floor. He doesn't care enough to check.

Stiles takes a deep breath and tries to martial at least some sense of reason. "Okay. I can see that. But . . . I'm not pissed at you for not warning me. Okay? Can we just leave it at that?"

Isaac finds talking to the ceiling above him easier than actually having to face anyone. "I dunno. Are you going to be okay if we do?"

Stiles opens his mouth to say yes, but it's a lie and he knows it and everyone at the table will know it. He thinks back to what his father says and his voice actually cracks a little as he says, "Dude, I am _so_ not okay right now. But you are my priority. And it's not my business to tell anyone else your secrets, so I can't even really tell Derek or Scott why I'm upset unless you're okay with it. And it's fine if you're not. It really is."

There's quiet for a minute. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how much it cost Stiles to admit that. "The pack doesn't really keep secrets, do they."

"We," Scott corrects automatically. "You're part of the pack."

Stiles gives his head a little shake. "If you don't want to talk about it . . . and God knows I don't . . . my dad could send the picture."

"Yeah, or just, just let me leave the room or something." Isaac is profoundly glad that he's not looking at anyone. "I don't . . . it's fine if they know, if you need to talk about it, but I, I can't. And I can't listen to it."

"I get that." Stiles lets out a breath. He looks at him, sees how shaken he is, tries to figure out how to get both of them what they need. "Scott, how about the two of you go . . ." He tries to think of a place, and wishes that this had come up before they had eaten. He could have sent them out to pick up some food. And only Derek is old enough to buy liquor, which is probably what they all need. The thought of food actually makes him somewhat nauseous. He's barely touched his pizza. "Go rent a movie for us. Pick out something non-traumatizing."

"On it," Scott says, standing without complaint. He doesn't need the details; he just wants to know that Stiles is okay. He holds a hand out to Isaac, who takes it after a moment and lets Scott pull him to his feet. "Just text one of us when we should be done picking out a movie."

"I, uh, I don't have a phone," Isaac mutters.

"Oh, okay, then text me," Scott says, wondering how long it's going to be before somebody buys Isaac a phone.

Stiles nods, and the two of them leave without another word. He slumps over, resting his face in his palms, and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

Derek gives him a couple of minutes before speaking, and doesn't reach out to him, because Stiles wouldn't have kept his distance without reason. "Isaac smells less like guilt now, but you've smelled like fear since you two showed up here." It isn't an accusation, like it would have been if he had said it earlier when he had been trying to pry Stiles' mouth open. It's said with concern.

"He . . . his dad punished him by . . ." Stiles chokes on the words. "There was this, this freezer in the basement. It can't have been _half_ the size of that car trunk and Isaac's like six inches taller than me. There were scratch marks on the lid. Like . . . he had tried to claw his way out of it. I . . . I don't even understand how he manages to get up every day."

"Jesus Christ," Derek mutters, trying both to imagine it and to shy away from it at the same time.

"But he didn't seem to want me to have seen, so I just, I thought I could pretend I hadn't seen it and act normal and everything would be fine." Stiles shook his head, still not looking up. "I should fucking know better."

"Since he didn't seem angry, I think the reason he didn't want to see it was for your benefit, not to protect himself." Derek sighs. "The instinct to protect your pack is a good thing. You just have to work on execution. And remember that we want to protect you as much as you want to protect us."

Stiles nods mechanically. He's heard that before, multiple times. "I just . . . I had a complete freakout. I threw up on his _lawn_."

Derek rubs his hand over his face, hard. "I'm guessing it was more like a flashback than anything else? And who cares if you puked on Lahey's lawn. We've just established that we hate him."

"Yeah, I . . ." Stiles gives another shudder. "I just, _why_? Isaac might not be able to talk about it, but he kept going back to that house every day, knowing that his dad could . . . could put him in there again." He nearly chokes on the word. "Meanwhile, I'm PTSD boy just from getting stuck in a trunk that was absolutely roomy compared to that thing."

It's clearly time for some brutal honesty, so Derek says, "Isaac's a quieter person, just for starters. And that isn't an insult. It just is. You just aren't made to be somewhere without movement and input. While it might not be great for Isaac, I bet he can stand it in a way that you can't." Now Derek braces himself for a truth or two that are as hard for him as they are for Stiles. "Peter was psychotic. My uncle had just . . . lost it. You had no way of fighting back, and no way of knowing whether or not he or anyone else was going to come for you. You were facing down death, Stiles. Isaac's dad may be a grade A abusive dick, but he wasn't going to leave Isaac to die and they both knew it."

Stiles takes a hitching little breath. He can still feel the walls of the trunk closing in around him. It's a feeling that almost never entirely goes away. He wonders sometimes if it will be with him the rest of his life. He can't stand enclosed places anymore. Even just being in a _room_ can be difficult for him, and he keeps the windows open in almost every kind of weather. He hasn't taken an elevator since then, doesn't even like being in bathrooms. But it has been getting better. He can protect himself now, and he knows that the rest of the pack could find him if he ever got taken away. What Peter did to him will never happen again. His nerves ease a little bit. "God, I can be such a wreck sometimes," he says, rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes.

"You and almost every other member of the pack." There's a pause. "Except maybe Allison. The bitch," he adds, with good-natured deliberation. "But you aren't the only one with major issues, hang-ups, and triggers."

"Yeah." Stiles lets out a sigh. "Just . . . just do one thing for me, okay? _Don't_ make me sleep tonight. I know you think I should, and hell, you're probably right, but . . . Isaac does _not_ need to witness the batch of nightmares that's going to kick my ass the next time I doze off."

Derek doesn't like it, but at least Stiles asked, and brought the need to his attention rather than just continuing to freak out alone in his corner, so Derek really can't bring himself to deny the request. "I'll give you one night. If it's still an issue after that, we'll have to come up with a different solution."

"Well, I'm not going to try to stay up indefinitely," Stiles says, rolling his eyes as if he hasn't tried to do just that in the past. "But we're clearly already set up to sleep here tonight. Tomorrow, we can just . . . sleep in different groups. And I can have my freakout with you or Scott or hell, my dad, while Isaac stays with some pack people who are not me."

"Am I expected to wake you up if you should happen to fall asleep?" Derek's hoping that Stiles isn't planning to drug himself, but he's pretty sure it's an empty hope.

"No, I'll be okay. You sleep." Stiles takes out his phone and says, "I'll text Scott to know it's safe to come back. Hopefully he's convinced Isaac that I don't hate him or anything stupid like that."

Derek lets out a snort. "It's Scott. The fluffiest wolf in the state of California. I'm confident that he can dispense comfort in the necessary measures."

"He's _so_ fluffy," Stiles agrees. He huffs out a breath. "Sorry if I'm a little, you know, non-touchy tonight. And . . . this week."

"It's a little hard to believe that he's actually able to kick ass in a fight." Derek gives a half shrug, then gets up and opens a window. "I'm sorry in advance if I forget."

Stiles just gives a little nod. "Thanks," he says. He also stands up and just presses his cheek into Derek's upper arm for a minute, resting his weight against him to show that things between them are okay.

Derek curbs the urge to wrap an arm around Stiles, and just lets him lean. "We can get through this. I promise."


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Okay, trucking along here... one or two more chapters of Isaac after this, and then Erica!_

_Then onto the fic I really want to write where the alpha pack comes to visit and things get DRAMATIC again. I miss BAMF Stiles. Need to get back on that. ^_^_

* * *

Chapter Six

The nearest video store is several blocks away, so Scott snatches Stiles' keys on their way out the door, and they get in the Jeep. He drives in silence for a minute before saying, "You wanna talk about it?"

Isaac gives a tight huff of laughter and shakes his head no.

"'Kay. What sort of movie are you in the mood for? Stiles typically likes Disney and shit when he's like this. Though sometimes, you know . . . shit, everyone I know cried at The Lion King. It's like the saddest scene ever. And let's not even go into The Dark Crystal."

Isaac martials himself enough to talk about movies. "I never saw that, but I did see Labyrinth and that was kind of scary in parts." He waves a hand and adds, "Besides David Bowie's pants. But on both of those topics, how about Muppets?"

"Oh, yeah," Scott says, brightening. "Good idea. We should get that new Muppet movie. I haven't seen it yet. And who knows whether or not Derek's ever seen any Muppets. Dude is seriously sheltered."

Isaac nods. "Who makes it to twenty without seeing The Princess Bride?" He's quiet for a moment. "If I did want to talk about it, what would you say?"

Scott glances over at him, though he doesn't take his eyes off the road for very long. "I'd say to tell me whatever you feel like telling me. You're in a judgment-free zone."

"What the hell is it that makes me want to talk to you people?" Isaac sounds frustrated with his lack of understanding.

"The same thing that makes Stiles and Derek snuggle like newlyweds even though they're both straight," Scott says. "The same thing that made Lydia Martin acknowledge that people like me and Stiles actually exist. The same thing that makes it impossible for me to sleep by myself anymore." He gives a little shrug. "I'm not going to say it's normal. It's pack. And it's weird. We all thought it was weird at first. Stiles said that everything felt awkward, but strangely okay. So, if that's how this feels, roll with it."

"But I'm not crazy? It's a thing?" Isaac asks, because he _doesn't_ talk about it. Not to teachers, or to friends (not that he really had any), or cops or school nurses or anyone.

"Totally a thing," Scott agrees. "And weird for everyone at first. You'll get used to it, I swear."

Isaac nods, and then, nearly out of nowhere, says, "I'm sorry my house and . . . whatever . . . messed Stiles up."

"Stiles was messed up long before you showed up," Scott says comfortably. "We're all pretty messed up, actually. And I understand why Stiles was pretending everything was okay, but he should have realized he was just twisting you around worse."

"Why should he have known that?" Isaac asks, genuinely curious. "It's not really his job to understand or deal with _my_ issues. They're mine. I'm not going to put them on anybody else."

Scott blinks at him, perplexed, for a moment. "But that _is_ his job. That's, like, _exactly_ his job. He's the alpha. He's responsible for the pack. Physically, emotionally, uh, nutritionally . . . probably grammatically, if you ask him. Plus he's a freakin' genius, so really, he's probably kicking himself for not being smart enough to figure out that you would blame his trauma on yourself. Which is dumb, by the way. Just in case you hadn't figured that out."

"Oh. Good to know." Isaac shakes his head as if to clear it. "Doesn't that suck for him? I mean, I realize that he didn't mean to become alpha, but . . . I don't know, why doesn't he hate it?" Isaac decides to let Scott's last statement just lie where it had fallen between them.

Scott gives a little shrug. "Stiles was doing shit like this long before he became alpha. It's just the way he is. He's been that way since his mom died. He likes having people to look after. Right now, he's probably just frustrated that his own issues got in the way."

Isaac just nods again. It's sort of his fall back to show that he's listening. The trouble with spending so much time not saying anything to anyone and keeping secrets for so long, he's discovering, is that he has a tendency to simply run out of words.

"So just try not to worry about it, okay?" Scott says. "I, I kind of hate to use the word 'triggery', but, well . . . we all kind of have them. Derek won't allow an open flame in his apartment, Stiles won't go in elevators, Lydia hates the sight or smell of blood, and I, well, I don't do real well with people telling me what to do. We try to avoid it when we can, and when we can't, we have our freak-out and then move on. It's just part of life. So whatever it is that Stiles saw in your basement that freaked him out, just, try not to worry about him. He just needs to get it out of his system. Derek will take care of him."

Isaac nods again. "Stiles and I can be claustrophobic together. And I'm not a real fan of violence unless it's, uh, reciprocal? Lacrosse is fine 'cause I can hit back, you know?"

"Yeah," Scott says, "but to be honest, that may change when you get turned. I wasn't exactly a fan of violence either, but . . . I really _enjoy_ lacrosse now in a way that I didn't before. I enjoy, well, I enjoy the physicality of it. And you will learn how to protect yourself. Kind of a required course. Even Lydia didn't get out of it."

"Self-defense lessons sound good. I'd like that." It's another step towards no longer being a victim. "I have to admit that seeing Lydia and Allison fence, even with toys, was awesome." He looks over at Scott with a cockeyed grin and says, "And knowing Allison is deadly with a bow is kinda hot, I have to say." The grin fades to something more normal. "I mean, I would never . . ." He raises a hand, unsure how to articulate that he would never try to steal Scott's girlfriend. "But still. Are the lessons because of the hunters?"

"Partly that, and partly just because life is uncertain, I guess," Scott says. "Allison gets training from her dad, and then she teaches it to the rest of us. And Derek teaches us about using the wolf powers during fights. You know, those of us who have them."

"I think it's been pretty clearly illustrated that life is uncertain." Isaac's quiet for another moment. "Thanks. For talking to me. Repeatedly. I'll try not to freak out too often."

Scott pulls into the video store parking lots and turns off the Jeep. "No problem. And seriously, if Stiles is a little quiet or edgy tonight, just let it go. It's _not_ because of you. Okay?"

Isaac gives a decisive nod.

"Cool," Scott says, and hops out of the car, heading inside.

* * *

The first two people that look at Isaac and then turn away immediately to gossip, presumably about him, don't faze him much. It happens frequently enough. He's a loner who wears clothes that are about three years out of fashion and often has nasty bruises on his face. But it keeps happening all the way through first period and by second he swears he can feel eyes burning into the back of his neck. By third period, Isaac's actively trying not to shrink and hunch his shoulders. People are staring at him, only to look away at his approach. He's sure they're talking about him because he actually hears his name used more than once. He feels like a spot light is following him around, and it's awful.

Everywhere he goes, stares, whispering voices and often sniggering or giggling follows him like the tail of a kite. Isaac survived by not being noticed and now he feels exposed and therefore endangered. He wants to hide in a dark corner far more than he wants to go to lunch, but tells himself he shouldn't break routine. That will draw even more attention. So he enters the cafeteria just like he used to and sits alone at the table he used to before he met the pack, because that's the only thing that he can think of that's changed, so he decides to change it back. He's not blaming them, but at the same time he's mere minutes from bolting from the school just to get away from the attention. He doesn't think the Sheriff would take to kindly to him cutting class after all the trouble the man had gone to for him.

Of course, sitting alone does absolutely no good, because the others spot him and simply join him at his own table. Stiles plops down next to him on one side, and Lydia's on his other side. Allison and Scott sit across from him, leaning into each other a little as they often do. "What's up?" Stiles asks. His tone is light, but there's a little bit of unease to it. He can tell that something is wrong without needing to ask.

Isaac immediately tries to curl his frame down like he can possibly hide between Lydia and Stiles. "People are staring at me. Talking about me." He pushes his food away. There's no way he's going to be able to eat when his stomach is tying itself in knots.

"Oh, yeah." Stiles rolls his eyes. "I've already had three people ask me if it's really true that I puked on your lawn."

"I . . . what?" Isaac asks. He heard Stiles, and even comprehends the words, but they don't make any logical sense to him.

"Well, I did," Stiles says, "after my trip into your basement yesterday. I kinda had a freakout." He waves this aside. "PTSD: the gift that keeps on giving. Anyway, apparently someone saw me, and now it's all over the school."

"I'm sorry," Isaac says, his immediate, instinctual response. He rubs a hand over his face, careful of his new, but hopefully last, black eye. "We can be claustrophobic together."

"Cool," Stiles says. "Anyway, they're probably all just wondering what the hell happened in there to make me sick, and I'm sure they're coming up with all sorts of wild theories. Just ignore them. They'll get tired of it and move on eventually."

Isaac keeps his eyes on the table and his face blank. "Unless it's before the end of lunch, I'm going to lose my mind. I don't like being _noticed_, let alone stared at." His shoulders are starting to hunch up around his ears. "It's making my skin crawl."

Stiles grimaces. "I'm not sure there's much we can do about that, unfortunately. Maybe I can take their attention off you, somehow . . ."

"Uh, that doesn't seem very smart," Isaac says, looking at Stiles like he's lost his mind. "And it's not really your problem that I'm totally screwed up."

Stiles gives a little shrug and says, "Alpha. Something's bothering you, I take care of it. All included in the job description."

Isaac stares at him. "You really mean that, don't you."

"Well, yeah," Stiles says.

"Hey," Lydia says suddenly, "don't you live across the street from Jackson?"

Isaac's attention shifts to Lydia while he's still trying to process Stiles' reply. It may take a few months. "Whittemore? Yeah," he says. Jackson in his stupid, rich, ultra modern box of a house. It looks like it's made out of plastic.

Stiles' lips thin. "Well, we know where the rumors got started, then."

"So what can we do about it?" Allison asks.

"It's Jackson Whittemore," Isaac says with a huff. "Not a lot. He's got more popularity and money than God. Or a Kardashian."

"I can't even threaten to withhold sex anymore," Lydia says regretfully, before biting into a carrot stick.

Scott gives a horrified shudder. "Oh geez. I don't want to think about him getting laid. Or him getting that close to you."

"He wasn't that bad, actually," Lydia says, and rises from the table. "Excuse me for a moment."

The others watch her go, but she doesn't go anywhere near Jackson. Instead she sits at another table full of girls, most of them popular, and immediately starts gossiping with him.

"It's amazing the way she does that," Allison says. "It's like they all forget that she's sort of a social outcast now."

"It's not like you guys are unpopular," Isaac says. "I mean, you were friends with Lydia back when she was still super popular, and Scott's the captain of the lacrosse team. But, you know, the captain who's nice and approachable." He doesn't go on to add that Allison is super hot, because there's just no way to do that which wouldn't be embarrassing or poaching or possibly both.

"I kinda forget that I'm sort of popular now," Scott muses, mostly to himself.

"Anyway, I think she's trying to find out if Jackson started the rumors, and exactly what they are," Stiles says. "If it's just me puking on your lawn, we just need to spread a rumor of our own about why I was doing it that'll have nothing to do with you. Then they'll just focus on me and forget about you."

Isaac has no idea how Scott can miss the fact that he's 'sort of' popular. The only reason their table isn't crammed full is because they give off that feeling of being invitation only, although somehow they manage not to do it in a bitchy way. "Thanks. For being willing to do that."

"Eh," Stiles says, and just continues to eat his food. Isaac is still trying to think of a reply when Lydia returns, sitting back down with her lunch.

"We're good," she says. "The theories range in creativity, but so far I haven't heard anything about Mr. Lahey being arrested. Apparently – you'll like this, Stiles – the rumors are getting progressively more creative because general opinion is that you're actually kind of a badass, and so whatever you saw in his house has to have been _bad_ if it actually made you throw up." Smirking a little, she says, "Jackson must be furious."

"So . . ." Scott's gaze shifts between Stiles and Isaac. "The rumors he started are accidentally turning into the truth?" Because their alpha _is_ a badass, and while Scott doesn't know what Stiles saw at Isaac's house, he knows that it would take a lot to make Stiles throw up. PTSD or no PTSD. There are levels of trauma. He's even more glad that Isaac is out of that house.

"Apparently," Lydia says.

"Man," Stiles says, with a little shrug, "I'd feel sort of embarrassed if they knew it happened basically because I got really claustrophobic."

Isaac just thumps his head against the table, not wanting to know what would happen if anyone found out _why_ Stiles had felt claustrophobic. Allison taps her fork against her Tupperware lid. "Let's make sure they don't," she says. She smiles, and it's one of her small, devious smiles. "I have an idea. What if we just spread more rumors?"

"Yeah, that would work," Scott says, because any plan proposed by Allison has to be a good plan.

Lydia is a little more practical. "Such as?"

Allison shrugs. "Let's just up with ante with every rumor. Maybe kidnapping? Drugs? Mafia? He's a hit man? Vampires!" Now she's grinning. "Just make sure there are so many that nobody can sort their ass from their elbow. And if they range from reasonable to ridiculous, but you two just nod and smile at every rumor, people will stop looking to you for answers."

"Yeah, eventually," Stiles says, "but we'd get a hell of a lot of attention along the way. That's not exactly how Isaac seems to want to handle this."

Isaac peeks out from where he's resting his arms on the table. "No . . . I want people to forget I exist. But it's not going to happen so her idea isn't bad. It'll be less personal." He considers this. "Does that make sense?"

Stiles thinks about it for a long minute, with a faint, distant frown on his face. Finally, he declares, "Fuck it." Without further warning, he stands up, climbs up onto his chair, and from there up onto the table itself, being careful not to step on their lunches. He raises both hands in the air and says, "Can I have your attention, please!"

It's not really phrased as a request, and since becoming alpha of the pack Stiles has carried a certain _presence_ with him, that makes everyone pay attention whether they know about werewolves or not. So the cafeteria quiets down almost instantly as all eyes turn to him.

Isaac's head jerks up off the table, both in startled reflex and because Stiles wants his attention. It's somehow a compulsion that he can't really ignore, at least not without an internal struggle that really doesn't seem worth it. He notices that Scott, Lydia, and Allison's attention seems to be just as tightly captured. He swallows once and asks quietly, "What's he doing?"

Lydia lets out a quiet little sigh. "Probably something stupid."

"So, I know you've all heard about my little adventure the other day," Stiles says, "and I'm sure there are lots of creative theories going around to try to explain it, so I figured I would just set the record straight really quick. So no, there was not a body in the garage and no, I did not have my first gay experience, and no, there were no brains in jars. It was a simple case of gastroenteritis. Gastro, being Latin for 'stomach' and entero being Latin for 'inside' and 'itis' being Latin for 'inflammation'. It's caused by either rotavirus or norovirus, typically, and in short it happens when the body decides that food is the enemy, causing violent expulsion from both ends, sometimes simultaneously."

Several girls in the cafeteria gag. Murmurs of disgust go up from pretty much every table.

Isaac's eyes go wide. Scott just starts laughing, because he's used to Stiles. Lydia and Allison look faintly revolted, but not at all surprised.

"I'm feeling much better now," Stiles continues, "and hopefully will make it through today without puking on anybody, and I'm probably only a _little_ contagious at this point so as long as you avoid my bodily fluids you should be okay – "

Someone throws a glob of mashed potatoes at him. Before long, half the cafeteria is throwing chips or crackers, and Stiles hastily gets off the table and plunks back down into his seat.

Isaac is staring at him in dumbfounded shock. Eventually, he manages a heartfelt, "Thank you."

"No prob, that was kinda fun," Stiles says, grinning.

Lydia gives him a severe look. "Entero is Latin for the small intestine, you uneducated twit."

"Whoops," Stiles says.

Isaac actually cracks a smile. "Where have you people been all my life?"

"Here," Stiles says. He looks up and around and scans the cafeteria. "One more thing," he says, and gets out of his seat. People have gone back to their own conversations by now, and nobody really notices as he walks across the cafeteria and takes a seat at Jackson's table, right across from him.

Scott perks up and trains his hearing on Stiles. "This oughtta be good."

Stiles is giving Jackson a wide smile that shows teeth. "Hi," he says. "Got a sec?"

"Get lost," Jackson says.

Stiles just . . . _stares_ at him. For a minute that is much too long to be comfortable. Then he says, "Hi. Got a sec?"

Danny, who is not an idiot, says, "Yes. He's got a second."

"Thanks," Stiles says. "Danny, do you mind giving us a little privacy?"

Danny looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment. "Do you mind not murdering him for whatever shit thing he's done?"

"Scout's honor," Stiles says, holding up his hand in salute.

"Then I can give you a little privacy." With that Danny gets up and leaves the table, dragging Jackson's other two buddies with him, leaving him to clean up his own mess.

Jackson just rolls his eyes as the others leave, looking up at the ceiling with that insufferable 'why must I deal with the plebes' look on his face. His attitude changes rapidly when Stiles says, in a matter-of-fact tone, "Isaac is in my pack."

Now Jackson reacts as if Stiles has slapped him across the face. "_That_ pansyass gets to be in your pack when you turned away _me_?"

"Yes," Stiles says. "And let's think about what that means, shall we? It might mean, for example, that I'd be offended if you called him a pansyass. Or if you spread rumors about him all over the school."

Meanwhile, back at the pack's table, Scott's jaw tightens. He says, "I've just decided I won't repeat what Jackson is saying. We can all imagine it well enough. 'Blah, blah, blah, I'm a self-entitled douche, blah, blah.'"

Allison lets out a little giggle. Lydia gives a pained sigh, but doesn't protest.

"Yeah, whatever," Jackson says to Stiles. "Like I give a shit what you think."

"Maybe you should." Stiles is still looking him dead in the eye, or at least he would be, if Jackson would meet his gaze. "Maybe you should think about what the consequences will be if you don't."

"Oh, yeah?" Jackson asks, sounding unimpressed. "I'm so scared, I'm shaking in my boots."

Stiles takes a quick glance around and sees that nobody is really watching them. His hand snakes out and he grabs Jackson by the chin, forcing the older teenager to meet his eyes. "Step off my pack, Jackson," he says, more of a growl than anything else, "or I guarantee that you will regret it."

Scott actually swallows a little before relaying, "Stiles is, uh, issuing promises of unspecified unpleasantness." He knows that when words like that come out of an alpha's mouth about his pack, they aren't a threat.

Jackson yanks back but can't get free; Stiles has him in an iron grip. There's a flash of fear and frustrated rage in his eyes, but Stiles won't let him go until he says, "Okay, sure, whatever."

"See?" Stiles smiles at him, that feral smile. "Look at what can be worked out when two people behave like reasonable adults." He lets Jackson go and saunters back to his own table, leaving the other teenager pale and pissed off behind him. He plunks back down into his own seat and reaches for the sandwich he had been eating before all the excitement started.

Allison gives him an amused smile. "Did you have fun?"

Almost simultaneously, Scott lets out a huff and says, "He's going to be an ass at practice, isn't he."

"You're probably going to have to dislocate his shoulder again," Stiles says with a nod. "I had _so much_ fun. I really enjoy taking that cockbite down a peg every once in a while."

Isaac watches all of this before speaking. "Who's he going to go after? You or me?"

"You," Stiles says, without hesitation. "He's afraid of me. But you can handle him." He delivers this opinion with the utmost confidence.

Isaac nods once. "I can." He's never much feared violence handed out during practice or even at games. It was less than his father dished out, and he got protective gear, and he was allowed to hit back. He can handle Jackson and even take him down a few notches if he doesn't have to worry about his father being pissed off that he's not making nice to the team captain. But it does give him an unexpected boost of confidence and warmth that Stiles is so sure. It's a novel feeling.

He's about to say something else when the bell rings, and they all instinctively cram the last of their lunches into their mouths and pack up their stuff. "See you at lacrosse," Scott says to Isaac, with a mouth full of Fig Newton. "Stiles?"

"Nah, I gotta take my dad to PT," Stiles says. "I'll be there 'til five." He swings his backpack onto his shoulder. He needs an excuse to split up the pack tonight, so he can get the worst of the nightmares out of his system without Isaac bearing witness. That means another night at Scott's place. He can take off after the others are asleep. "See you guys at Scott's around six?"

This is quickly agreed upon, and they go their separate ways.


	7. Chapter 7

I meant for this chapter to be very serious, but then Stiles got involved.

* * *

Chapter Seven

Two days later, it's the new moon, and they're staying the night at the Stilinski house. Gradually, Isaac is getting used to the sleeping arrangements. At Scott's, Scott and Allison get the bed, although Lydia will sometimes sleep at the foot of the bed in her wolf form, and the rest of them get the floor. At Stiles', they all cram into the bed together, with everyone who can be in wolf form shifted, so there's enough room. Derek doesn't even have a bed. His bedroom has tons of cushions and pillows and padding blankets eight inches deep. They just sleep in a pile.

At the moment, Derek is pacing around the living room, glaring at nothing. He seems to be working himself up to it. He's in his partially shifted form, claws and fangs and bright blue-silver eyes. His fists are slowly clenching and unclenching. His obvious case of nerves is not making Isaac feel any better about what's about to happen, although he's been standing there with his arm extended for upwards of a full minute now.

"It's not going to work," Derek finally says, his tone abrupt, almost angry. "I can _feel_ that it's not going to work. I'm just a fucking beta."

"Okay," Stiles says, lifting his hands in surrender. "You could at least try – "

Derek snarls at him.

Isaac lets out a breath. "It's all right," he says. "I, I mean, I won't say I'm not disappointed, but I get it."

Derek rubs both hands over his face. "Sorry," he says. "I just . . ."

"Wait." Stiles has gone quiet, meditatively so. He seems to be rolling things over in his head. His eyes are closed, centering himself, drawing down to some point inside, the part of him that _is_ the alpha. That holds the power, if not the fangs, of the wolf. He wants Isaac in his pack. Isaac belongs there, and they are going to do this. When he opens his eyes again, they're gleaming that vivid crimson. He reaches out and puts both his hands on Derek's back. "Do it."

It's an order, plain and simple, and both Derek and Isaac jump to obey without hesitation. Isaac extends his arm again and Derek moves toward him. He feels _something_, a rush of power, coming down Stiles arms and into his back and chest. Isaac sucks in a surprised breath when Derek's eyes change from blue to scarlet, and then winces when Derek's fangs sink into his flesh. It hurts, a lot, but Isaac is used to pain, and he grits his teeth over any noise he might want to make.

Derek pulls away, and his eyes almost immediately fade back to silver and then their usual grey. He looks somewhat surprised. Stiles looks a little tired, and shoves his hands down into his pockets, but his voice is steady as he says, "I think that worked."

"I don't feel any different," Isaac says.

"You won't, right away," Scott says. "I didn't feel any different until the next day. Although . . ." He frowns a little. "In retrospect, I was surprised that I got all the way back to the house without having an asthma attack. I mean, I had lost my inhaler, and I was worried that I'd stop breathing in the middle of the woods. But after he . . . after I picked myself back up, I made it all the way home without so much as a wheeze."

"It takes about ten to twelve hours to start feeling the effects, usually," Derek says. "And twenty-four hours before you have the ability to shift. It might take a little longer since the moon is new."

"Okay." Isaac lets out a breath as Scott puts pressure on the bite wound and then tapes down some gauze over it. He looks at Lydia and says, "What about you?"

"I was unconscious for almost eight hours after the bite," Lydia says, "so I don't really know. Then Derek turned up in my hospital room when no one was looking and said 'by the way, you're a werewolf now, try not to freak out and shift before you get discharged', then left without explaining anything."

Stiles looks at Derek. "You did? I didn't know that."

"You were . . . unavailable," Derek says.

"Oh, right," Stiles says. "That would've been while I was in the car trunk." He shoves the memories away. "Still, seriously? You just said 'hey you're a werewolf' and took off?"

"Somebody had to tell her," Derek says stiffly, "but I was too busy to stay. If you'd care to recall, a lot was going on. Scott had been shot, and I spent most of the next couple days in the forest looking for Peter . . . and looking for you."

"Oh." Stiles rubs a hand over the back of his head.

"Not that it did any good," Derek adds, his tone somewhat bitter.

"Hey, look at me, all safe and found and shit," Stiles says. "All's well that ends well, right?" Since it looks like Derek has serious doubts about Stiles' judgment in this matter, Stiles continues hastily, "Let's go watch a movie."

They spend the rest of the night watching TV and eating popcorn and Isaac manages to think about things other than his impending werewolf-ism. Sheriff Stilinski is home, but goes to bed long before they do. Eventually, they fall asleep sprawled all over Stiles' bed. Adding Isaac has made it quite a tight fit, and he's looking forward to being able to spend it curled up in wolf form, presuming he's able.

He wakes up feeling like someone is shoving a drill in his ear. The other pack members are all still sleeping, and don't seem to notice the noise. Isaac can't help it; he staggers out of bed and out of the bedroom. When he gets downstairs, he finds Sheriff Stilinski in the kitchen, using a machine to grind coffee beans. "Oh God make it stop," he says, wincing as he presses both hands over his ears.

"Hm?" Stilinski looks over and then hastily takes his finger off the button. "Oh. You okay?"

Isaac nearly gasps in relief as the noise stops, leaving a resounding silence behind. "They said it'll even out after the first few days, but . . ." He shakes his head as if to clear it.

"Well, hey, apparently it took," Stilinski says. "You're looking a lot better."

Isaac instinctively raises one hand to his face, then leans over to see his reflection in the toaster. The blackened eye, which had been fading but still very much visible, is completely gone. The little scabs on his hands from cleaning up the broken glasses are gone as well, with smooth, uninjured skin left behind. The only wound that remains is the bite itself. "Thanks," he says, automatically, then watches Stilinski shuffle across the kitchen to fill the coffee pot at the sink. "Do you . . . ever think about it?" he asks.

"About what?" Stilinski asks, glancing over his shoulder.

"You know . . . the bite." Isaac hunches over uncomfortably. "I know that you're still in physical therapy for your shoulder and stuff."

"Ah," Stilinski says. He puts the coffee pot in and tips the ground beans out into the filter. "I won't say it's never crossed my mind," he says, "but I've never considered it seriously. I'll get better with time and patience. And . . . this whole werewolf thing . . . well, I don't want to say I'm too old for this shit, but if the shoe fits." He starts the coffee maker and turns to face Isaac. "But it's mostly because actually joining the pack proper would really mess up my relationship with Stiles. I'm his father, so I'm in charge of him in day-to-day stuff. And when it comes to pack stuff, I don't get involved unless he specifically asks my opinion. If I were in the pack, he'd be in charge of me . . . and that would just be awkward."

"I can see that," Isaac says, laughing a little. Then he's caught in a gigantic yawn.

"You should get back to bed," Stilinski says, a little amused. "It's not even six yet. I'm working the early shift today."

"Okay," Isaac says, as the yawn trails off.

"Sorry I woke you," Stilinski adds.

"Oh, no, it's okay," Isaac says, and wanders back to the bedroom. Allison has rolled over, but nobody else has moved. He sits down on the edge of the bed for a minute, looking at his hands and trying to picture claws coming out the tips. Nothing happens. He yawns and crawls back into bed. One of his feet nudges Lydia, who opens a sleepy eye and then shifts to rest her chin on his calf. He's asleep a few minutes later.

The new moon fell on a Friday, luckily for him, so he has the entire weekend to get used to the werewolf thing. He wakes up again around ten AM to find that Lydia and Allison are both up, sitting on the floor and chatting quietly while they paint their toenails. Scott isn't in bed anymore, either, and isn't in the room. Isaac sits up and rubs his eyes. Both girls smile and offer him a good morning.

"Your bruises are gone!" Allison says. "That means it worked!"

Isaac nods, and somehow the girls decide that this is an excellent time to paint his toenails, which he finds difficult to argue with. It's not as if anyone will see them. Derek wakes up while this is going on and rolls his eyes at them, climbing out of bed and pulling on a T-shirt and flannel pants. The girls are still in their pajamas as well. Scott comes back in, fully dressed, and Isaac can tell he just showered because he can actually smell the soap on him.

"Gotta go to work," he says, leaning down to give Allison a kiss. "See you guys later?" he adds, and there's a round of nods and an exchange of goodbyes.

Stiles sleeps soundly through all this, and once Scott is gone, Derek says, "Let's go get some breakfast."

"Stiles . . .?" Lydia says.

Derek shakes his head a little. "He hasn't been sleeping well. I'm not going to wake him."

Isaac feels that pang of guilt again, and it's obvious that the others know it, because Derek reaches out and rubs his hand over Isaac's hair.

"It's not your fault," he says. "Stiles has had trouble sleeping a lot longer than he's known you. C'mon, let's get some food."

"But how are we going to get food if Stiles is asleep?" Allison jokes.

"I can cook," Isaac offers. "Not anything fancy, but . . . I did most of the cooking at home. Dad, you know, he liked to have dinner ready when he got home, so . . . I can handle some scrambled eggs and toast."

"Cool," Allison says. "I can help."

So they eat breakfast and then get dressed and Derek decrees that they're going to outside for a while and help Isaac get used to his new senses where it's quieter. "What about Stiles?" Isaac asks, and Derek tells him that their alpha will find them when he gets up for the day. So they troop out Stiles' back door, hop the fence, and go into the woods. It's a nice enough day, for winter, sunny and in the forties. They'll stay warm as long as they keep moving.

The forest is so _different_ now, in ways that he never would have expected. He can hear the little forest animals in the brush, and the noise of the wind rustling the dead leaves still clinging to the branches. He smells earth and wood and far-away smoke from a campfire. His sight hasn't improved – but that makes sense, because wolves don't rely on sight.

He can smell each of his pack members in an entirely new way. It's a _scent_, not just Lydia's perfume or Derek's deodorant but a unique pattern of smells that he could never describe in words. It trails after them and surrounds them like a tiny cloud.

He feels fit and healthy, and keeps up with them easily, eagerly, as they troop through the woods. He wants to move, to play, to _run_. But Derek keeps his energy pent up, and they explore the forest slowly, as he gradually adjusts to all the new, different sensations.

It's annoying, when he's so energetic, a feeling he is not at all used to. But as soon as Stiles shows up, he realizes why Derek has kept them moving slowly and close to the neighborhood. If they got too far, Stiles wouldn't have been able to catch up. The teenager trots down the path carrying a gigantic thermos full of cocoa and jumps on Derek's shoulders, nearly knocking him over. "Tag, you're it!" he shouts, drops the thermos, and takes off into the woods like a shot. All the other pack members scatter as if Stiles had dropped a grenade. Isaac takes the cue and takes off running. It's an amazing, glorious feel, just to _run_, with nothing holding him back, no reason to stop, nothing but the earth under his feet and the wind in his ears.

Of course, a game of tag is somewhat unfair, given that two members of the pack are human, and Isaac is still getting used to his new strength, so Lydia and Derek have to hold back a little. But they don't complain about it. Nobody focuses on the slower humans; they each have a turn or two being 'it'. Then they convene over cocoa, which has by now cooled enough to drink.

"You guys didn't have to let me sleep so late," Stiles says, and Derek responds by cuffing him upside the head.

If someone had said to Isaac the day before 'let's go play outside all day', he would have looked at them like they were insane, or at the very least weird. But the wolf wants to play. So they play red rover and keep away and freeze tag, and each game helps hone his wolf skills in a different sort of way. He finds that they were right about him not minding getting knocked around as much. Not that any of them seriously try to hurt each other, but the games are physical by necessity and sometimes a little violence edges in. But he can dish it out as much as he takes it.

Towards the end of the day, they switch to hide and seek, and Isaac learns about using his sense of smell and hearing to track different members of the pack in the forest. But the pull of the alpha is strongest, and he finds Stiles first every single time. "I have a natural disadvantage at this game," Stiles says cheerfully, after the fourth time this happens. He doesn't seem to mind a bit.

Scott comes back from work as the sun is setting, and Isaac is almost stunned to realize that he's honestly spent the entire day just playing kid's games in the forest. Scott greets the others and then him, with that same bro-hug that Isaac has seen him use with Derek. He realizes the purpose of it, now. While the girls can rub cheeks without it being awkward, it would be weird for two guys, but the casual, masculine hug they share serves the same purpose. It's about scent: not just the taking of it but the leaving as well. The exchange of scents makes sure that all of them are marked as belonging to the same pack.

At some point, someone must have texted Scott to let him know where they had been all day, because he shows up with pizza and a twelve-pack of soda. The food is shared out and they just sit around on the forest floor in the near dark, cramming their faces. Isaac finds himself grinning like an idiot. It's been a good day, an amazing day. A type of day that he wouldn't have known himself capable of having.

While they eat, Scott talks about work and Stiles is joking about some drunk that his father had pulled over a couple nights previous. Isaac is half-listening and half just enjoying being there, when he feels a strange shiver go through him. He takes a quick breath and looks around, not sure what had happened. The conversation briefly lulls, and Isaac says, "What . . .?"

"The moon," Derek says. "It's moonrise."

That scares Isaac a little – that he can feel the moon even when it's only one day away from being new. But the others don't seem very distracted, so he chalks it up to the fact that it's the first time.

With nightfall, the temperature has dropped, and Isaac finds himself shivering a little now that they aren't moving around anymore. "Should we go in?" he asks. "It's getting late."

Derek shakes his head. "You'll want to be outside tonight. There are games that can be played in the dark."

Stiles lets out a muffled chortle. Allison giggles and Lydia rolls her eyes. Scott groans at Stiles' reaction while Derek growls and swats at him, although the motion clearly lacks in any real sort of threat. Isaac tries to stifle his laughter. Stiles just grins without remorse and says, "Let's play chain tag."

The others seem agreeable, and at first Isaac doesn't think anything of it. Tag again. Harder in the dark, but he has his sense of smell now, If it was suggested by Stiles, one of the humans in the pack, his conscience is clear in the matter of human disadvantages. Then the details sink in. "Wait, what's _chain_ tag?"

"Oh, dude," Stiles says, "I love this game. So let's say I'm it, and I tag you. Instead of changing who's it, we link up and have to stay together and run around trying to catch more people. And then _they_ link up with us. Only the people on the end can tag in new people, since they'll have free hands. And whoever's last to get tagged starts the next round as the lone 'it'."

"Huh. Okay." He can see why he had never heard of it. It sounds like you would need at least five people to get a decent game going, and his group of friends had never been that big. He can see the advantages in this game, too – not just running around and burning off energy, but learning to work together in pursuit of a common goal.

Derek grumps. "If a pack hunts together, they wouldn't do it as a chain. That limits your options for tactical maneuvers."

"Duly noted, General Killjoy," Stiles replies.

"If we were hunting, it might matter," Lydia states primly. "But as we are not, it's hardly relevant."

Derek's scowl deepens. "The whole _point_ of these games is to hone the skills for hunting and – "

"Who votes Derek has to take the first turn as it?" Stiles asks, and there's a resounding chorus of 'me!' Isaac is not yet comfortable enough to take anyone's side, so he decides that silence is the better part of valor. Still, he starts scrambling to his feet, because Stiles has already taken a breath and he sees the others tensing up, just as Stiles says, "Okay-ready-set-go!" and everyone takes off running.

Isaac doesn't run too far because he doesn't want to get separated from the pack in the dark. At first he's dodging Derek, then Derek-Lydia, and then Stiles is added to the chain and Isaac leaps away to evade his flailing grab. He lands in a crouch and spins easily to look back, his claws digging into the ground to keep him anchored like it's no problem at all.

Then all of a sudden it hits him. Claws. He suddenly has a hand full of claws. He freezes in surprise. "Gotcha!" Stiles says, one hand smacking Isaac across the shoulder. "Hah!"

Isaac startles and makes a small noise that's almost a yip, but he doesn't join in the game. Instead, he turns and blinks up at Stiles with bright gold eyes.

"Oh, hey," Stiles says. "You shifted. Did you do that on purpose?"

Isaac shakes his head and takes another look at the claws. They look like they could really cause some damage.

"You okay?" Lydia asks, studying him in concern. Allison and Scott are drifting over, seeing that the game is on momentary pause.

"I'm . . . pointy." Isaac considers how his words sound. "And slurring?" He carefully examines his face with the palms of his hands and thinks about how the others look when they go wolfy. He can't help but laugh. "Oh my God, my face."

"At least he's taking it well," Derek says.

"A little too well," Scott says. "It's kinda freaky. You don't feel, I don't know . . . homicidal or anything?"

"No. Should I?" Isaac examines his claws again. They really could hurt someone. Especially by accident. He's suddenly glad that Sheriff Stilinski made him move out of his father's house. He doesn't want to have these if he was ever mad at the man. He wishes they were shorter and a little less pointy. He can suddenly feel them retract a little. "Better."

"Well, I did," Scott says, sounding a little puzzled.

"You were turned two nights before the full moon," Derek reminds him. "Right now, the impulses won't be that strong. To be honest, I'm surprised you shifted at all."

"Good to know." Isaac rocks back on his heels. "Someone want to tell me how to unshift? Or better yet, do the full transformation? I think we'd all like it if I took up less room on the bed."

"It's not 'unshifting'," Derek says, with that glower. "It's just shifting."

Isaac is worried for a moment that Derek is actually insulted. Then he sees Stiles rolling his eyes. Scott, for his part, shrugs and says, "It kind of is unshifting, dude. You were born a wolf. Two feet or four. Both are perfectly normal for you, but us bitten wolves? 'Human'," he says, using air quotes, "is our baseline normal. It's like . . ." He looks around, trying to find the right words. "This isn't normal for us in the beginning, okay? It doesn't mean shifting is bad, but it's just not . . . normal. So we, or at least I, shift and unshift."

Somewhat thoughtfully, Lydia says, "I guess I was that way at first, but now I think of it as shifting back and forth. Not shifting and unshifting, or just shifting."

"Okay, guys, this is all really fascinating," Stiles says, "but how about one of you answers his question?"

Derek scowls at Stiles. "You can't really explain _how_ to shift. You just have to feel it." But he does give a sigh and consider for a moment. "If you want to try full wolf form, I would suggest stripping off your clothes and going for a run. That way," he adds, pointing to where the forest starts to become more dense.

Several of the teenagers let out a snicker, both at Derek's words and Isaac's mildly disconcerted look in response. "Dude, why is _everything_ about being naked with you?" Stiles asks, grinning at the older man.

Derek raises an eyebrow at them. "It's not. It's cold out. He'll want the fur." His expression smoothes out. "You're all perverts."

"I'm a sixteen-year-old boy," Stiles says. "That's pretty much synonymous with pervert."

"There is just nothing I can say to that," Derek says, and throws his hands up in surrender.

Isaac, for his part, is glad that nobody wants to see him naked, but doesn't want to say anything lest he slur more words. He thinks about not doing that, the same way he thought about not wanting his claws to be as dangerous.

"Oh, come on, you were sixteen once," Scott says. "It wasn't even that long ago. You're saying that _you_ didn't spend all your time thinking with your dick when you were sixteen?"

It seems like an innocuous enough comment, but Isaac sees Stiles give a grimace, and not a play one either. Then he sees Derek's body language change somehow. His smooth expression is just blank. There's no amusement in his eyes anymore, and he's tensed like he might run, taking a step back. Stiles interrupts loudly, drawing attention to himself and says, "Just because _you_ can't go more than ten minutes without making it to second base – "

"Hey!" Allison protests, laughing. "We're not _that_ bad."

"You are, you _so_ are," Stiles says, "and I know that for a fact because I was _there_ when Ms. McCall found all the empty condom boxes in the trash, and as glad as she was that you were using them – "

"Oh my _God_, Stiles!" Scott protests, turning bright red.

Isaac watches Derek nearly fold in on himself as the tension leaves his body so quickly, and the look he gives Stiles is painfully grateful. Then, almost as quickly, Derek pulls himself together. Isaac isn't sure exactly what he just saw, but he makes a mental note not to joke about sex while Derek's around, or ask much about his years as a teenager.

"Hey, you changed back," Lydia says, smiling at him. "Were you trying to do that?"

"Yes?" Isaac says, looking away from Derek. His words come out clearly and he grins. "Yes. Totally."

"Okay, then," Stiles says. "You heard the man. Skinny-running in the forest time."

Isaac opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, but he can't think of a really good argument besides 'my balls will fall off', which he obviously can't say in front of Lydia Fucking Martin and Allison I-Have-a-Disney-Princess-Smile Argent. So in the end he just starts stripping. "I'm keeping my boxers."

Scott and Derek start undressing as well. "It'll be easier if you're running in a pack," Scott says, "but we can leave the ladies behind this time."

Lydia makes a face at him, but doesn't protest.

"Still keeping the boxers," Isaac replies, folding and stacking his clothes up on top of his shoes, already rubbing his hands over his arms as the chilly air seeps into his skin.

"Wimp," Scott says, as Stiles watches them somewhat wistfully.

"Hey, have you ever run with your dick just flapping in the breeze?" Isaac asks, momentarily forgetting the girls.

Allison sidles up to Stiles. "Wish you could run with them?" she asks, and he just nods.

"Yeah, actually," Scott says. "You'll figure out how to change _real_ fast, trust me."

"Me too, sometimes," Allison says quietly, taking Stiles' hand in hers.

"Mental image I didn't need, thanks," Isaac says, clearly not changing his mind.

"You're all slow," Derek retorts, and the next moment a dark, shaggy wolf is standing there, and he tilts his head back to the sky and howls. The call is quickly picked up by the others regardless of form. Even Isaac joins in, although his voice is wobbly in the beginning. Derek takes off at a run and the others follow suit, except for Stiles and Allison, who can't keep up when the wolves are in their fully shifted form.

"So . . ." Stiles says, once they're gone. "This time that Scott was running through the woods with his dick out, did that have anything to do with you?"

Allison gives him an innocent look. "What makes you think that?"

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter. "Unlike Derek, Scott doesn't typically enjoy naked runs in the woods. Your dad walked in on you?"

Allison tosses her hair and says, "He told us we weren't allowed to do anything under his roof. So we were doing it in the backyard."

"Hah!" Stiles can't help but chortle. "You oughtta be careful with him. One of these days, he's going to remove something that both you and Scott find valuable."

"No, he won't. I wouldn't speak to him ever again."

"Yeah, he would think of that . . . _after_ he calmed down."

"Yeah, well, I don't mean to offend you, being a guy and all," Allison says, "but unless you're actively planning to do something with it, a penis is kind of . . . awkward-looking. You know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Stiles says. "My dick is a work of art. Maybe Scott's is just funny-looking. I mean, his jaw _is_ slightly uneven."

"Has he always been like that?" Allison asks. "Or did something happen?"

"No, he was born that way." Stiles chuckles again. "Maybe he got squeezed coming out."

"Stiles!" Allison bursts into laughter and smacks him on the shoulder. "That's his _mother_ you're talking about . . ."

By the time four wolves pad up to them, both of them are leaning on each other and laughing hysterically. Seeing the others approach just makes them laugh harder, particularly when Scott shifts back into his human form so he can ask, "What were you two talking about?"

"Your dick," Stiles says, and howls with laughter.

"Your _mom_," Allison says simultaneously, and they practically fall over.

"Dude!" Scott says. "Not okay!"

"So hey, Isaac, you're a wolf!" Stiles says, recovering enough to divert the subject. "Nice! The boxers really give you an air of sophistication," he adds, and then collapses into giggles again.

"Well, at least he wasn't swinging in the breeze," Allison says, between gasps of laughter. "Showing off his 'work of art'!" And with that she smacks Stiles on the shoulder before leaning on the same shoulder to stay upright.

Derek shifts back, shakes his head at them, and says, "You know, I'm fairly sure Isaac was picturing his first night as a werewolf as some sort of momentous occasion. With way fewer dick jokes."

"Says the man who's been the butt of every dick joke – oh man, pun totally intended – ever since my father cornered him naked in the kitchen," Stiles says, practically crying because he's laughing so hard.

Derek just rolls his eyes and shifts back to his wolf form, trotting off into the forest. He looks over his shoulder and then gives his head a little jerk, and Isaac follows him, glad to get away from any forum in which his dick might be discussed. Scott shakes his head at them and shifts as well, and the group of wolves disappear into the forest. After a minute, still giggling, Stiles and Allison follow.


	8. Chapter 8

_So I decided to just post all the Erica stuff at once. Four chapters of Erica! I freakin' love her._

_Though sometimes I think Stiles shouldn't be allowed to talk . . ._

* * *

Chapter Eight

The morning after the full moon is quiet and lazy. Stiles is too tired even to cook, which is okay because nobody is really hungry. They're lying around Derek's apartment, which is closest to the warehouse where they spent the evening, drifting in and out of sleep. Isaac is particularly exhausted. Although he had more than enough mental willpower to sustain his consciousness throughout the night, the effort was strenuous. The others, especially Scott, had been more than a little surprised while they watched him sit there and maintain perfect control. Even Derek, for whom good control came so easily, had been impressed.

"And as they say on the internet, everything went better than expected," Stiles remarks sleepily at the ceiling.

"Mm," Derek agrees. He's sprawled out on the cushions with his eyes closed.

That's something else that Stiles has noticed. The strength that comes from having increased their numbers. He can already feel it. He felt it last night, while the moon was up. They're just a little faster, just a little stronger, a little more connected. Each pack member is like added pressure in a vise, driving them together.

"Well, since this went so well, obviously we should think about continuing to expand," he says.

Isaac opens one eye and makes a questioning noise despite himself.

"It's not because you're not enough," Stiles assures him. "In fact, if anything it's because adding you to the pack _has_ been so awesome. We weren't sure how it would work out at first. But it works. We should keep doing it."

Scott half-sits up, but then sags back down to the pillows. "Well, before Derek mentioned Isaac, I was going to suggest Erica Reyes," he says.

"The epileptic girl?" Lydia asks.

"Yeah," Scott says. "I know her a little from when I was in the hospital a few times. You know, the little kids, they don't care as much about separating by gender, so we shared a room once or twice in the winter, when the hospital was really full. She seems really quiet, but actually she's got a real temper."

"Which could be good or bad," Allison points out.

Scott shrugs a little. "Call it a hunch. I have a feeling about her. The way Derek had a feeling about Isaac after meeting him."

"Good enough for me," Stiles says. "But it might be a little hard to approach her. Because she's so sick, I mean. She's pretty much never alone. I mean, we could talk to her during school, but we can't really say 'hey, werewolves are real' and then shift to prove it in a public place. And you know that no one will believe it if someone can't shift to prove it. I mean, fucking werewolves."

"We could approach her in the hospital," Derek says, "next time she gets admitted."

"Uh, no," Lydia says. "That is a terrible plan. Remember what Papa Stilinski said about _not_ approaching people when they're in a position that they can't say no? While she's in the hospital after suffering a seizure is one of those times."

"Honestly, I don't know that it would make a difference," Scott says, "since she's pretty much _always_ sick. But maybe you and Allison can get her alone at school, in the girls' room or something."

"Now that is a great setting for this talk," Stiles says, with a snort of laughter.

"When you come up with a better idea . . ." Scott says.

"Not really," Stiles admits.

"Then I nominate Lydia and Allison to break the 'werewolves are real' news to her and invite her over to dinner," Scott says.

Lydia nods. "We're on it."

* * *

Erica's pack introduction starts off a lot like Isaac's did: quiet and awkward. She says, "hey" but barely looks at Scott, Allison, and Lydia. She only looks at Stiles because he's the one who lets her in the door. She exchanges a little nod with Isaac, because he's also another complete social outcast, or at least he was until recently. When Stiles asks if she likes Chinese food, she just gives a little shrug and murmurs, "Sure, whatever."

On the whole, Stiles isn't feeling really sure about her. Isaac was quiet, but it was still easy to get a sense of who he _was_ underneath the quiet. Erica seems barely there, like she only showed up because Lydia told her that she had to, and she's trying to work out some way to get the bite but not have to interact with any of these people.

But Stiles puts up with it because being sick sucks and she's obviously had a pretty rough life. So they eat sesame chicken and fried rice and ginger broccoli that he's made, because he's been bored with Italian lately. Erica picks at her food and studies the table. Nobody seems quite sure what to make of her, and the conversation swirls and eddies around her as if she's a rock in a river.

That's how she feels, too. Like she's been tossed into the water and it's going to close over her head any second now. She doesn't want to eat because she feels sick, and she can't tell whether it's nerves or an actual medical issue, but it doesn't really matter in the end. She doesn't belong here, with these confident, well-put-together people. Not when on most days, it's all she can do to drag herself out of bed, make sure her clothes are clean and her hair is brushed. She can feel them all pretending that they aren't watching her, just like another school day, and she knows she's here to be judged as to whether or not she's worthy of their group and worthy of this thing that will take the seizures away. And she's failing. She knows that she's failing.

Suddenly she's pissed off. It isn't fair. She doesn't know how to be pretty, or put together, or social. She isn't capable. She has two choices. To be a nervous, jittering wreck, or to have seizures. She doesn't appreciate being put through some stupid screening process. She thinks she should earn some sort of break simply because she hasn't fucking killed herself yet. But she wants not to be a wreck anymore, so she'll stay, and try not to express her opinion. She grinds her teeth and stabs a piece of broccoli.

"How's the shoulder, Sheriff Stilinski?" Isaac asks, in a conversational lull.

He grimaces a little. "One more week of physical therapy," he says. "Then, theoretically, I'll be proclaimed cured by the miracle of modern medicine, as long as I never try to lift anything over ten pounds with my left hand again."

"You must be glad to have it over with," Allison says.

"Well, it beats the alternative," he says.

"Yeah, no offense to your mom, Scott, but if I _never_ have to go to that hospital again, it'll be too soon," Stiles says.

Erica snorts before she can stop herself and mutters, "At least she has a sense of humor. And apparently nice legs."

All of the wolves present clearly heard every word that Erica said, but are too nice to point it out. Derek raises an eyebrow at Stiles. Stiles just grins back and says, deliberately, "You probably know the hospital in and out, right, Erica?"

Erica shrugs. "I guess." She doesn't speak very loudly. This isn't exactly her favorite topic. Sure, she knows it. From inpatient visits, and emergency visits, and testing, and a whole slew of other things, but it isn't exactly dinner conversation. She tries to divert, and maybe get a little of her own back. "I'm sure Scott does, too." The smile that she gives them is tighter than socially acceptable. She shoves the broccoli into her mouth before she can screw up anymore.

"Oh, yeah," Stiles says, "in fact, Scott was the one who said we might want to think about approaching you. I guess you were in the hospital together a few times, back when he still got sick all the time."

Everyone, even Derek, stares at Stiles, who has basically made the least tactful comment ever. Erica's eyes narrow and her gaze swings over to Scott. "Imagine that," she says, her fingers white-knuckled around her fork. Scott gives her a sheepish smile and wonders if he's going to end up wearing her dinner. He vividly remembers the time he and Erica had shared a hospital room and she had whipped her green Jell-O at the obnoxious kid from the next room who wouldn't let them be.

Erica just wants to slam Stiles' face into his plate. 'Back when he still got sick all the time', her ass. He's just rubbing her face in what she's pretty sure she's never going to have, because she can't keep a civil tongue or fit in.

"Not that I really enjoyed the hospital either," Stiles says, his tone fairly bland, for all outward appearances oblivious to the rising tension in the room. "I wound up there a couple days last winter, and it pretty much sucked."

Scott seriously considers edging away from Erica and Stiles. He knows he can't be the only one smelling the anger that was starting to build into rage rolling off of her. What he doesn't know is why Stiles is provoking her like this.

Erica musters a smile in response to Stiles' comment. "You should really try spending some more time there, then. Get to know the staff better, figure out where the good DVD players are, who plays poker and who's only good for Go Fish. Who will sneak in fast food. That kind of thing. It takes time and dedication."

At this, Scott does edge away. Allison gives him a 'what the hell does Stiles think he's doing?' look, and Scott just gives a tiny shrug in reply. He knows that Erica has a personality, and that they're not seeing it, so Stiles presumably has a plan. He just wishes it was one that wasn't going to end in violence. Stiles might actually wind up spending time in the hospital at this rate. Everyone else is sensibly keeping their mouths shut.

"Not really my idea of a good time," Stiles says, with a melodramatic sigh.

Sheriff Stilinski gives a visible wince.

Erica's fork screeches across her plate with deliberate harshness. The smile on her face clearly implies 'fuck werewolves and their great hearing'. It's a strangely pretty smile in a sharp, cutting sort of way that's at odds with her frizzy, unkept hair, bitten down fingernails, and the oversized slouching T-shirt. "What exactly is the point of this, you used-up douchenozzle? Because if it's to make me feel like shit? I could have achieved that without expending the effort to get out of bed today, thanks. If it's to remind me of how much my life sucks, I take pills on a schedule for that. If it's to point out that I can't carry on a normal conversation to _literally_ save my own life, well shit, asshole, I knew that too, but thanks for the update." She slams back from the table and stands up, although she's a little wobbly. "I'm leaving before we get to the floor show part of tonight's entertainment."

Stiles' hands shoot up in surrender as soon as she really gets going, and he's perfectly serious now as he says, "Sorry, really, sorry. I just – I was trying to – okay, I was being a shit on purpose, that's obvious, nobody's _that_ oblivious, but you were sitting over there in your corner thinking that you didn't fit in but you _do_, you're perfect, but nobody was going to know that because you were trying to pretend you were somewhere else, some_one_ else, and nobody here wants you to be someone else."

Erica is just staring at him, because really, who would expect a one-eighty like that? Then she pulls herself together. "No, you don't. _This_ is who I am. I'm a bitch. And I'm not sorry I was mean to you. You deserved it." She swallows. "No one wants me around. They just think they do because 'oh poor Erica'."

"No, seriously," Stiles says, "if you will introduce me to more charming terms like 'used-up douchenozzle', I will marry you. This instant. My dad can officiate. He's the captain of the ship. Or, uh, something like that."

Erica looks over at Sheriff Stilinski, then back at Stiles. "What is _wrong_ with you? Never mind." She squeezes her eyes shut and ran a hand back through her hair partway before clenching it down into a fist. "I'm going to go out on your porch and have some quiet time. Because that's what I need right now. Someone come out in ten minutes to make sure I haven't had a seizure and died. If I have, call someone to pick up my body."

With that, she stomps out of the room. The front door slams a minute later. Stiles watches the door for a second before saying, "That could've gone better, maybe."

"Oh, I don't know," Scott says. "You didn't wear any food. She's done that before. Thrown food, I mean."

Derek resists the urge to rub his ears. "That is one angry girl."

"Yeah, but she . . . she was just sitting there convincing herself she was all wrong," Stiles says. "I had to do _something_."

"You're an idiot," Lydia informs him, almost fondly.

"At the risk of putting a damper on things by being the voice of reason," Stilinski says, "are you kids sure you want to be giving this sort of power to someone that angry? If she's really like that all the time?"

Scott nods and then shrugs. "I kinda knew she was like that. It's hard to explain to someone who's basically healthy, but it's easy to be angry when your biggest enemy is your own body. Because you can't escape it, or defeat it, or outsmart it."

They all consider that in silence for a minute, before Lydia says, "But she wasn't angry when she came in. She was awkward, and nervous, and okay, she was kind of . . . resentful. About having to be here at all instead of just 'bam, you're a werewolf'. She didn't actually get angry until Stiles started needling her to get a reaction. So I don't think she's angry all the time."

Scott looks at all of them and bites his lip. "You . . . you guys really couldn't tell? Couldn't smell it?"

All he gets are blank looks.

"She went outside because she was afraid she's going to have a seizure," Scott says. "I could smell it, the way she was just sort of waiting." He gives a little shrug. "I'm not saying we're wrong not to just turn her, but I'd be pissed and resentful too if someone dangled something that could cure something that was crippling me right in front of my face and then told me there were conditions I had to meet. Especially if I thought I couldn't meet them, or that they were rigged against me." He looks down. "If I had been _offered_ the bite, I probably would have said yes on the basis of it fixing my asthma alone." He waves a hand and adds, "Peter notwithstanding."

"Ah, shit." Stiles pushes back from the table and says, "I'll be back in ten minutes or so, don't worry if you feel me panicking."

Scott grabs him by the arm. "Don't."

"Dude, she already hates my ass. I'm going to fix it." Stiles pulls free and goes down the hall. He pokes his head out onto the door, sees Erica standing rigid by the porch railing. He lifts his hands in surrender as he steps out onto the porch next to her. She whirls and opens her mouth, prepared to let him have it with both barrels, but he quickly says, "I want to show you something."

Her eyes narrow, but then she heaves a sigh. "Sure. Why not."

"It's gonna seem weird," he says, going down the front porch steps and into the garage.

"Weirder than werewolves?" Erica asks dryly. "Or marriage proposals?"

"Quite possibly, yeah." There's a door on the side of the garage that he goes through, into the backyard. There's a little shed attached to the garage, that holds some gardening implements, most of them somewhat rusty, the lawnmower, a rake or two. It's quite small, and with all the tools inside, it's very cramped. Stiles leads them both inside and shuts the door, leaving them in almost complete darkness. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, sweat already starting on his palms and the back of his neck.

"Soooo . . . what's this? If you try anything, they will never find your dick," Erica says, the words spilling out, irritated, nervous, confused.

"No," Stiles says, "I wouldn't do that. See," his voice hitches a little. "I'm claustrophobic. Really, severely claustrophobic. I haven't been in this shed since I spent two days in the trunk of a car last winter." His nails are digging into his palms as he struggles to keep his voice even.

Erica can hear the waver in his voice. "Then . . . why are we in here?"

"Because I was a jerk," he says. "A real son of a bitch. It's your right to see this. I saw you scared. You're seeing me scared. Quid pro quo."

"More like hearing. I can't see shit." She reaches out with both hands, aiming for the door knob with one and his arm with the other.

"Jesus!" Stiles gasps out, as soon as her hand touches his arm, and he scrambles back, away from her. His back hits the wall of the shed and he lets out a noise that can only be described as a whimper.

"Oh, wow." Erica had planned to grab him, open the door, and drag him out, but it looked like she was going to have to re-order things. "I'm not _this_ mean." She moves forward towards where she knows the door to be. It takes a little fumbling, but she gets it open and then turns to look for Stiles. He's huddled in the back corner of the shed, crouched down with his knees to his chest. He looks up when the light hits him, and bolts for the exit without having to be told. Once outside, he starts taking deep, shuddering breaths.

Erica waits until he seems a little more steady. "Okay, no more 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours'."

"I've had dumber ideas." Stiles sits down in the grass. "But . . . I had at least a little bit of an ulterior motive. I wanted to see how you would react."

She sits down too. She's damned tired. "Were you afraid I'd leave you there or something?"

"That or just watch me have a freak-out and enjoy every minute of it." Stiles gives a little shrug. "I would have deserved it, after I kept poking at your tender spots like that."

"There are limits, you know?" Erica says. "Mocking you for being claustrophobic might be fair, but leaving you to suffer? That's not cool. That would be like leaving me to have a seizure without rolling me onto my side, or not finding Scott an inhaler when he's actually turning blue. There are lines."

"Exactly," Stiles says, "and now I know you know that." He holds his hand out and says, "So, assuming you want anything to do with any of us tonight, and keeping in mind that I'm the alpha of this pack . . . you're in."

"They actually let you be in charge?" She reaches out to take his hand, but hesitates. "Are the others okay with me? Because I don't want to be stared at or anything."

"Erica, to be totally honest with you, everyone in this pack is damaged goods. You are no different from any of us. You belong with us. And everyone in the house knows it."

"And this will really fix my seizures?" She sounds desperate.

"I can't give you a one hundred percent guarantee," Stiles replies. "But Derek thinks it will, and he knows way more about it than I do."

"Okay. Then let me talk to him." She smiles and this time it's a little softer. "And thanks."

"Sorry about earlier," he says. He has to brace himself against the wall of the shed to push himself to his feet, then offers her a hand up. "No hard feelings?"

"I'm never telling you where the good DVD players are if you end up in the hospital again," she says. "I just want to make that clear." She takes his hand and nearly has to crawl up him to get to her feet.

"Well, _now_ I have hard feelings," Stiles mutters, shifting slightly. He clears his throat and says, "Okay, you still need to get the lecture on why this is a terrible idea. My dad insists that we deliver it to every new recruit."

She leans her shoulder onto the shed wall next to him, resting. "Will I stop being tired all the time?"

"I hope so," he says.

"Then I don't think there's anything you can say that will make it sound like a bad idea."

He bumps shoulders with her. "Even the fact that I'm in charge?"

"Yeah." She snorts in amusement. "You have to do a lot more than that to take the number one spot on my asshole list."

"C'mon, then, let's go finish our dinner. And try opening your mouth on occasion to do something besides yell at me. Nobody's gonna care if you're awkward. Seriously? Scott owns over a hundred Star Wars novels. Isaac used to dig graves. Allison still cries at Dumbo and Bambi. Lydia spent sixteen years pretending to be a vacuous twit. I take too much Adderall and write research papers for fun. And Derek? My first conversation with him was four words long. 'This is private property.' Then he just glared at me and walked off. None of us are what you would consider well-adjusted. I'm required by my dad's law to tell you that all this werewolf shit could actually kill you. I mean, there are werewolf hunters and shit."

Erica gives another shrug. "I could die tomorrow if I have a seizure in my sleep and suffocate on my pillow. Or if I have a seizure at the top of the stairs and break my neck. Or when I finally get sick of it all and overdose on my pills. Don't even talk to me about how many times I've been tempted. Death isn't really something that scares me."

"Great," Stiles says. "Lecture over. Let's go back in."

* * *

A few days later, Erica lies half rolled onto her side in her hospital bed. She's facing away from the door, staring out the window through the guard rail on her bed, but there isn't a lot to see from this angle. The rails are up in case she has another seizure because the one that had landed her here was one too many for her parents and her doctors. Now they wanted more lab work and imaging studies and other things she didn't give a shit about because soon she was going to be a fucking werewolf, and they didn't have epilepsy.

But she can't really think of a way to explain that to people, so she's stuck in the hospital. Well, that and she feels like utter crap, pulled at least three muscles, and is flat out exhausted. She rather enjoys the drugs she gets by IV, so she supposes that she shouldn't bitch too much. There's also the small mercy that this seizure had hit before school, so she got the appalling floor show done on the kitchen floor rather than, say, economics class.

She snuggles down into her pillow a bit more and lets her eyes fall shut, wondering if the pack will notice she's not around at lunch or even miss her.

She dozes for a little while and puts up with a nurse coming in to draw blood and the doctor having a serious conversation with her mother, and then dozes a little more. She wakes up to a hushed voice saying, "C'mon, don't wake her."

"I'm not the one who bumped into the bed," another voice hisses.

"Cut it out, guys!" someone whispers. "The nurse didn't want to let us all in, if we make a ruckus they'll come throw us out!"

The chatter eventually starts to rouse her, and she has the vague idea that maybe some patient has been moved in to share her room while she slept, and they have visitors. She hunches up a shoulder around her exposed ear to try to block the noise, thinking that maybe she'll throw something at them. But then again, maybe not. Her shoulder unhunches. She has some great muscle relaxants on board right now. She sighs and flops onto her back, opening her eyes.

"Hey, you." Stiles' face swims into her somewhat blurry field of view. "Sorry, did we wake you?"

Erica blinks owlishly, then rubs at her eyes. "Stiles?" Her voice conveys complete confusion.

"Hi," Stiles says. "How are you feeling? Scott's mom said you'd be pretty doped up. How many drugs do they need to give you before you'll start thinking I'm pretty?"

"Hi." She turns this statement over in her head and replies, "What are you doing here?" with a baffled look.

"Hey, didn't you say that I needed to spend more time in the hospital?" Stiles asks jokingly, and then adds, "We're visiting you, naturally."

"We?" She tries to sit up, startled, and fails, then uses the controls on the bed. The pillow falls on her face. She hugs it to herself and looks around at everyone. Allison, giving her the same smile she always wears that manages to be kind without pitying. Lydia, as immaculately put together as always, checking her lipstick in a little compact mirror. Isaac, a little more hesitant than the others, hanging in the background. Scott, trying not to laugh because he's familiar with the pitfalls of hospital beds. And Stiles, right by her bed, wearing that grin that she sometimes wants to smack off his face. "How'd you guys know I was here?" she asks. She still feels slow and tired, but her head is clearing some.

"My mom called us," Scott volunteers. "She knows about the pack stuff, so she figured we'd want to come visit."

"Handy." She shifts a little, awkward. "I've never had visitors before, so fuck if I know what we're supposed to do now."

"Gossip like old ladies," Scott says, grinning at her. He lowers one of the guard rails and climbs onto the foot of Erica's bed, sitting down there and using the other rail as a back rest. She decides that she doesn't mind. She isn't tall enough to need the whole bed, and there aren't enough places to sit. Besides, Scott's all _comfortable_ in this room with her. On the bed with her. Stiles looks like he's right at home, too. They've been here before, many times.

"Ooh! I can do that!" Allison claps her hands together. "Danny told me that Jackson told him that he's going to bring a _college girl_ to the Spring Fling dance. He clearly thinks we should all be very impressed by this."

Scott gives Allison a wide-eyed look. He's impressed, but it looks like it's with horror. Erica curls around her pillow, squashing it underneath her chin. "How much do you think he's paying her?"

"God, he'd probably think it's _more_ impressive if he's paying her," Stiles says, rolling his eyes. "Look how expensive a hooker I can get for prom! Er," he adds, and winces, "Sorry, Lydia."

Lydia just gives an 'it's all right' wave of her hand.

"God, he's such a spooge," Erica mutters. "Seriously."

Allison hears this and lets out a little giggle. Then she says, "Spring fling is a week after the new moon. So are you going to go, or what?"

"Me? Are you crazy? Have you even looked at me?" Erica ineffectually paws at her hair, which is in even more disarray than usual. This makes the bitten nails easy to see, and right now she's obviously underweight, and has dark circles under her eyes.

"Yeah, but man, did you see who I got stuck taking to the winter formal?" Stiles asks, with exaggerated dismay. Lydia looks up and narrows her eyes at him. "Kidding, seriously, kidding."

"I'll fight you for her," Isaac says to him.

"Bring it on, tough guy," Stiles says, holding his hands up in the position for traditional fisticuffs.

Erica laughs a little at the sheer ridiculousness of their behavior. "And then whoever wins can go find someone who isn't a disaster?"

"All aboard the Titanic, that's this pack," Stiles agrees comfortably, reaching out to twine his fingers through hers.

Erica looks down at their hands. "You're serious," she says incredulously. "Stiles, I dress with less care than you."

"Okay," he says, "Isaac and I will share you." He looks at Isaac. "Fair?"

"Fair," Isaac agrees.

Lydia is giving Erica a discerning look. "I think that earth tones would really look good on you. Dark brown, maybe, or dark green. Then again, you can't go wrong with basic black, but we don't want anyone to think that you're mourning your choice of dates . . ."

"Mourning their sanity, fuck yes." Erica shakes her head a little, then wishes she hadn't, because it makes her dizzy. She has to sit there with her head tilted up to look at the ceiling before it passes. "Maybe I really hit my head this time and I'm hallucinating or something."

Isaac walks a little closer and leans against the nightstand. "I thought that at first, too," he says. "I spent the first week in the pack terrified of _breathing_, like somehow they would discover I was there and realize what a mistake they had made."

Erica looks over at him, solemn, her grip on Stiles' hand not letting up, like she's afraid it'll disappear. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Isaac says. "But it's real, Erica. This is real."

She lets her head fall back against the bed. "So I should stop freaking out?"

"You should," Isaac says. "You won't, but you should. You'll get used to it, though. Just wait until you get out of the hospital and you get to attend your first wolf slumber party."

Erica grins at first, but then her face falls. "I'm not allowed to stay over at people's houses. Because, you know . . ." She makes an uncoordinated, flailing gesture that encompasses herself, the IV drip, and the room in general.

Scott jumps in. "We can have it at my house on a night when my mom isn't working. That way there'll be a trained ER nurse in the room next door."

"That . . . actually, that might work," Erica says.

"Cool," Stiles says. "You might want to think about what you want to tell your parents, though. 'Cause the sleepovers, they, uh, they happen a little more than you might expect. Like . . . every night."

Erica's eyebrows scrunch up for a minute. "Every night?"

"Every night," Scott confirms, rubbing at the back of his head. "It gets lonely otherwise, and there's this semi-desperate urge to find the rest of the pack if you wake up alone."

Allison pipes in with, "Sometimes we do mini-sleepovers, though. Just you and one other person."

Scott brightens suddenly. "Speaking of sleeping with others . . ." He looks around, trying to remember where he dropped his bag, and sees it next to Stiles' chair. He leans forward and makes little 'gimme' motions with his fingers.

"Dude, worst come-on _ever_," Stiles him, handing over the bag.

Scott grins at him. "I just wanted to see what you would do with it. I have to say I'm a little disappointed, given how large a target I gave you."

Stiles looks at Erica and says, "Isn't it cute, the way he tries to convince me he gave me that opening on purpose?"

"Adorable," she replies. "But your performance was a little lacking," she adds, with a wicked smirk.

"Oh, so I _should_ have made a joke about who gets to sleep with you first?"

"Why the hell not?" Erica asks. "I'll put it on my to-do list."

Scott, meanwhile, has been pulling a plush turtle out of his backpack. It's one that's been made to look at least semi-realistic, rather than goofy, which has resulted in its face being caught in a perpetual scowl. He ties a bow around its neck, which only makes it look more incensed with the world, and holds it out to Erica. There's a chorus of giggles from Lydia and Allison. Stiles is biting his lip to keep from laughing. Isaac just frowns at the turtle in puzzlement, like he's not sure why, out of all the stuffed animals in the world, Scott picked that one.

Erica slowly reaches out to take it, a little confused. "You . . . got me a stuffed animal."

"Yeah," Scott replies cheerfully.

"Why? It's not like I'm six years old anymore." But she's holding it now and peering down at it, into its angry little face. It's just big enough to hug, but small enough that it won't be in the way.

"Because they make you feel better at three AM when you're stuck here and the nurses are telling you that you should be asleep and you want to tell them to blow it our their ass."

Erica considers this answer and finds it acceptable. "He's angry." Now she grins. "I like it," she decides, and sets the turtle down in her lap, facing outwards.

Allison leans against Scott, wrapping an arm around his waist. Not in a possessive, jealous sort of way; just in a 'my boyfriend is unbelievably sweet' sort of way. He tilts his head over his shoulder and smiles at her, and they share a quick kiss. Then Stiles says, "Oh, uh, I brought you your homework? But I may have accidentally done it already."

"You . . . did my homework?" Erica says.

"You were asleep! I was bored!" Stiles protests. "I meant to do mine but then realized I'd gotten our assignments switched."

"I don't believe you," Erica says, deadpan.

"Neither do we," Scott says cheerfully.

Stiles' cheeks turn a little pink and he says, "Well, what, I was trying to do something nice, screw you all."

Erica blushes a little too, looking down at her lap, and the turtle. "Thanks. No one's ever done that for me before."

"Oh my _God_, you two," Scott says. "Get a room."

Stiles throws a pencil at him.

"It's homework, not porn, you freak," Erica says, kicking at him, although not very hard.

"I don't know," Lydia says. "When Stiles starts writing papers, you never know how things are going to wind up."

"You really just write random research papers?" Erica asks. "What's the weirdest thing you've ever written about?"

Stiles nearly chokes on his own spit. "You can't ask me that!" he protests. "I mean, this year _alone_ I wrote a paper about why Teddy Roosevelt was the most badass president, about the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, that woman who fell in love with the Eiffel Tower, and why the star of every romantic comedy produced in the last ten years would be in jail if those movies happened in real life."

"The who to the what now?" Erica asks.

"Which one of those are you asking for clarification on?" Stiles replies.

"The Frenchmen and the Eiffel tower," she decides.

Stiles clears his throat.

"Oh, boy, here we go," Isaac says, with a sigh.

Stiles flips him off. "The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is a neurological disorder kind of like . . . if Tourette's met hypnotic suggestion. They have a really bad startle reflex, and sometimes they'll jump or yell or randomly smack people. Also, if you tell them to do something in a really short, sudden sort of way, they'll do it. Like, they'll throw knives at people. It's pretty cool. Anyway, it was first found in the French Canadians doing logging in Maine. Thus the name.

"As for the woman in love with the Eiffel tower . . ." Stiles grins suddenly. "Actually, her name was Erika."

"That's awesome. The Frenchmen thing, I mean," Erica says. "Not the 'me sharing a name with a Jerry Springer episode' thing."

"Hey, give the lady credit," Stiles says. "She's not just some one-night stand. She _married_ the Eiffel Tower. That's her name. Erika Eiffel."

"Are you for real?" Erica tries to cross her arms, but then remembers the IV. Instead, she grabs the turtle and holds its cranky face up to Stiles' nose. "No lying. It makes the turtle angry. Angrier."

Stiles laughs and bats the turtle aside. "Hand to God. She has object sexuality, which is like, anthropomorphizing to the _nth_ degree. It's like living inside a Disney universe. Everything has a soul and its own personality and shit like that. She fell in love with the Eiffel Tower and married it in 2007. I'm not making this up, you can Google it."

"Aaaaaand, done!" Lydia says. "Totally the truth."

"Yeah, but what crack pot lets a woman _marry_ a landmark?" Erica asks.

"I don't think she asked permission," Stiles says, with a shrug.

"Okay then," Erica says. "Werewolves are sounding less crazy by the minute."


	9. Chapter 9

_This chapter is basically just food porn and pack banter._

* * *

Chapter Nine

In the end, they decide to give Erica the bite on her first night out of the hospital. The new moon is still five days away, but nobody wants to risk her winding up admitted again. When Stiles delivers this decision to her, she nearly kisses him. Scott's mom calls Erica's mom and talks to her about letting her stay the night. Erica's mom is somewhat reluctant, but Melissa talks her into it. Erica promises her mom to call to be picked up if she feels even the slightest bit sick.

It's a Saturday night, so a sleepover isn't unreasonable. Stiles has brought tons of food, and Scott proposes a marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Derek looks as dark and brooding as ever, but Erica is relieved when nobody actually asks, "Are you sure?" Instead, Derek asks, "Are you ready?"

"Like you don't even know," is her immediate answer.

"Okay," he says, and shifts. She's seen it before; her education going into this was pretty thorough. Sheriff Stilinski made sure that they went over all the pros and cons seriously, even when it was obvious that she would have agreed to just about anything to cure her epilepsy. She watches in interest as Stiles comes over and wraps his arms around Derek's waist, pressing his cheek into the older man's back. When Derek opens his eyes, they've changed from silver to crimson. She holds out her arm, and he sinks his teeth in. Even for someone used to pain, it hurts like a son of a bitch.

"Motherfuck!" It's sharp and it burns what feels like all the way down to the bone. But she grits her teeth and refuses to pull away. She holds her arm steady until Derek lets it go. Once he has, she pulls her arm to her chest and curls over it. "No one warned me it was going to hurt that much."

Derek shifts back to his fully human form and slowly wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. If there's blood left on it, that would be disturbing to everyone. "It's a wolf bite. Did you think it would tickle?"

She growls at him. Scott comes over with some gauze and bandages and starts wrapping the wound. "Make sure your mom doesn't see that tomorrow. It takes about twenty-four hours to heal."

"And then I'm good?" She knows she's coming off as desperately hopeful, but doesn't care. "No more seizures? No more drugs?"

"You probably shouldn't stop them cold turkey," Stiles says. "Some of those drugs were heavy-duty shit. But you can start backing off on them and we'll see what happens."

Derek nods. "This isn't . . ." There's a pause while he tries to think of a good way to describe what he means. "Being a werewolf isn't exactly a cure. It's just a better way to fight what's wrong. You heal. Scott still has asthma, but his body rights itself before the attacks get anywhere. You'll still have epilepsy, but your body will sort out the seizures before they get anywhere. Just try not to piss your body off."

Erica looks at him, almost spooked. "So I could still have seizures?"

Derek shrugs. "It's possible. If you really put your body to the test."

Scott jumps in before Erica can freak out, waving his hand to draw attention. "I haven't had an asthma attack since the change. But I'm also not about to stick my face in a bunch of Easter Lilies. Those always did me in at the speed of light."

"There, that's it exactly," Derek says.

Erica relaxes a little. Stiles jumps in, getting an arm around her shoulders, and says, "Come on, Buffy awaits, I know you need to see this, Erica."

Erica allows herself to be towed over to the sofa, where she curls up at the end. Stiles is next to her, sprawled against Derek's chest, at which she can't help but raise an eyebrow. She opens her mouth to ask, but then the episode starts so she puts it away for later. Scott and Allison are curled up in an arm chair, and Lydia and Isaac have bean bag chairs in front of the television.

They stay up late watching what Scott considers the 'best' episodes, and it's silly fun that she enjoys. At around two AM, they finally throw in the towel. "Are we all gonna fit in your room, man?" Stiles asks, yawning.

"Sure, we'll make it work," Scott says. "We can let the girls have the bed and the guys can have the floor."

Erica looks over at everyone. "There'll be enough room on the bed for three of us?"

Isaac seems to read her train of thought. "You'll have to snuggle up together. I'll feel weird tonight . . . and even weirder in the morning when you realize it suddenly _doesn't_ feel weird to use these people as pillows." He pauses, then adds, "Also, Derek and Lydia have a tendency to just get naked. You've been warned."

While Erica is just blinking, Lydia lets out a sniff and says, "It's not as if we have anything to be ashamed of."

"One: I almost had heart failure the first time. I mean, I just turn around and suddenly one of the hottest girls in school is just throwing off her clothes. Two: some of us look like Greek gods." He gestures here Lydia, Derek, and Allison. Scott and Stiles are included in a sort of general manner. "And some of us are built like Jack Skellington." His tone is more amused than insulted. He thinks he's made of elbows and knees, and that's okay.

"Dude, I'm built like one of those faun things that got kicked around in Fantasia," Stiles says. "Except, you know, without the faun parts."

Derek shakes his head at the teenager and says, "You are clearly up way too late."

Erica ponders Stiles. "Some of the fauns in the Narnia movie were hot."

"Yeah, I look so much like James McAvoy," Stiles says with a snort, and heads up the stairs. The normal rule about guys having to shower at night so the girls would have time before school in the morning doesn't apply on the weekends. It's too late to worry about it. Scott starts rolling out the egg crates and the blankets. Erica notes that at least he has a double bed, so although they will have to get cozy, they'll fit well enough.

Lydia does indeed just start throwing her clothes off, but Erica is busy trying to get the knots out of her hair to really care. She's a little surprised when Lydia shifts forms and jumps up onto the bed. She supposes that they'll fit better that way.

Derek also wastes no time dispensing with his clothes and shifting. Her hair brushing does pause for a moment then, but Derek does it so fast that it's barely worth it. She makes a frustrated noise. "Scott, do you have scissors? I'm just going to cut it off!" All the motion is making the bite on her arm hurt anyway.

Allison takes the brush out of her hands. "Let me," she says, and gives Erica a firm push into the chair at Scott's desk, then goes to work on the knot.

"That's why I keep my hair so short," Stiles says, yawning as he curls up on one of the egg crates and cuddles up next to Derek, pulling a blanket up over the two of them.

Isaac looks around, at Stiles already settled, at Lydia up on the bed, at Scott who almost always sleeps in human form, and thinks that there's a point where cuddling can get awkward even in a werewolf pack. Three human shaped boys might reach that point. "Be right back," he says. He grabs his bag and leaves the room for the bathroom, where he strips off his clothes, shoves them in the bag, and then shifts. While he's still the same type of wolf as the others, he does look longer-legged and a little spindly. His fur is a medium brown that looks perpetually disarrayed, some of it with that slight curl. He flops down and wiggles until he's pressed against Stiles' back, then tucks his front paws up underneath his chin.

As he comes in, Allison is saying, "You'd better watch out, Stiles. One of these days we're just going to steal your razor."

"I still don't understand why you all care so much about my hair," Stiles replies.

Scott yawns while he hauls blankets over to the wolf pack for himself and Isaac. When he's sure his jaw will still close properly, he says, "Because they're women. Don't question them. It's safer." He drops one blanket half-on, half-next-to Isaac, then settles down, curling around the other wolf and using him as a huggable pillow.

Allison runs a brush through Erica's now-smooth hair, then starts to braid it. "This way it won't knot up again before morning," she says. Erica just nods in a bit of a soothed stupor. Allison gives a yawn and a stretch before crawling under the blankets next to Lydia, who lifts her head and then gives a little nod to Erica to indicate that she should get in too.

Erica does so, feeling sort of, no, very awkward. And yet she just wants to settle right in. Isaac was right when he said it was weird. Allison reaches over and turns out the light. Erica feels some fur brush against her hand, and surprises herself by closing her eyes and falling straight to sleep.

It's mid-morning when she wakes up, and she's _starving_. She sits up and looks around, somewhat bemused to find that Isaac was right and she's totally using Lydia as a pillow. Other than that, the bed is empty. In the pile on the floor, she can see Scott with one arm flung over his face, with a wolf curled up on either side. She doesn't see Stiles.

She hopes he's in the kitchen, because then she'll get to eat something, _anything_, without having to feel guilty. If he isn't there, she'll find some cereal or something. She's so hungry that she's starting to feel sick, which is what makes her ease away from Lydia, creep out of the bed and then sneak out of the room. Almost immediately, the smell of food assaults her, and she nearly moans. She can smell coffee and orange juice, bacon and syrup. It's almost tangible, and she realizes that it's probably part of the increased senses she now has.

By the time she gets to the kitchen, she's pretty much given up on any concept of politeness and just throws herself at the quart of orange juice and one of the available glasses. She does manage to pour it into a glass before drinking, but then pretty much just chugs it.

"Good morning," Stiles says. He sounds somewhat amused, if a little tired. He's standing at the stove, tending a couple pans, even wearing an apron (which reads 'kiss the fucking cook' in all capital letters). Allison is sitting on the counter with that warm smile on her face, sipping a mug of coffee.

Erica raises the hand that isn't holding the glass. Once it's empty, she manages to speak. "Good morning," she says, and then leans in and kisses his cheek, because she can take cues. When she sees that nothing he's cooking is actually ready to eat, she pours herself another glass of juice. It disappears almost as fast as the first, and then she moves over to the coffee.

"I take it that you're hungry?" Stiles says, flipping the pieces of French toast in the pan.

"I'm fucking _starving_." She's staring at the food in the pan the way one would expect a wolf to stare at any food, but mostly red meat.

"Allison, you want to grab that – "

"Sure," Allison says, hopping down off the counter to reveal a pan of muffins behind her. Erica can smell the cinnamon in them. "They're better with – " Allison begins, before the first half of one disappears into Erica's mouth. "Butter."

She chews, swallows, and moans. "Oh my _God_ these are good." Clearly she doesn't feel butter is needed. The first muffin is basically gone and she's snagged two more, thinking that she'll break anyone's fingers if they try to make something of it.

"Try not to eat the paper wrapper," Stiles says, clearly amused (but also trying not to stare too hard at the girl who's currently moaning over the food he made). "And geez, save some room for the actual breakfast I'm making."

Erica's halfway through the next muffin and only barely not feeling sick anymore. "No problem."

Allison is watching her in a sort of awe. "Is this a normal part of the change that we just missed with Isaac?"

"No," Stiles says, "and Scott didn't do it either. But she _is_ pretty skinny, so maybe the wolf is just driving her to try to make up for it?"

"I'm skinny because I always felt sick," Erica says.

"I take it you don't feel sick now?" Allison asks.

Erica shakes her head, popping the last bite of muffin into her mouth. "Just starving."

"Well, I'll make you an omelet, then," Stiles says. "What do you want in it?"

"I . . . don't know?" Erica sounds well and truly baffled.

"Hm." Stiles gives her a thoughtful look. "Well, protein is always a good bet when you're hungry, so let's go with ham and cheese for starters. We can worry about a balanced meal later." He turns and starts rooting around in the fridge.

"Okay." Erica devotes herself to sucking down a mug of coffee and watching him avidly. After a minute, she takes a break to look at the clock. It's about half past ten in the morning. She frowns a little and adds, "When did you make those muffins?"

"Oh," Stiles says, "I've been up and baking since about six AM."

"What the fuck, _why_? It's a Saturday." She gives him a suspicious look. "Are you a morning person?"

Stiles laughs. "No, hell no. It's just that sometimes I don't sleep well, and it's better to just get up than to try to force it."

Allison frowns at him a little, since it's obvious to her that he had woken with nightmares and not wanted to go back to bed, but doesn't call him on the half-truth. It'll come out soon enough, and to be fair, she understands why Stiles didn't want Erica's first night with the pack to be interrupted when he woke up screaming.

Erica nods in acceptance of this before grabbing another poor, unfortunate muffin. "I bet you're a morning person," she accuses Allison.

"Guilty," she says with a smile.

"Speaking of which," Stiles says, "the bacon's gonna be done in a minute. You want to go roust the others out of bed?"

"Sure." Allison jogs off in the direction of the stairs.

"So other than hungry, how are you feeling?" Stiles asks Erica.

"Good." Erica pauses to do a self-inventory. Well rested, nothing hurts, head is clear. A general lack of misery. "Really good."

"Excellent," he says, and holds out a piece of bacon towards her mouth. "Just what I like to hear."

She takes it right out of his fingers in two bites, with another slight moan.

"Whoa, I think I saw a porno like this once," Scott says from the doorway, heading over to the coffee machine. Stiles immediately flushes bright pink and devotes himself to tending the omelet.

"What the hell kind of porno are you watching?" Erica asks Scott, with an amused look. "Anything Allison should be aware of?"

"Anything that's free and won't infect my computer with – hey, muffins!" Like Erica, Scott immediately dives in.

Erica growls at him and snatches another. Allison just laughs as she comes in. "Infects your computer with muffins?" she teases.

"See, the threat of viruses is why I like my porn text-based," Erica says.

"It's not the same," Stiles says, flipping her omelet over.

"What's not the same?" Isaac asks, coming into the kitchen, seeing the muffins, and grabbing two.

"Visual porn versus written porn," Stiles tells him.

"Do I even want to know why this is a topic of discussion?" Lydia asks, leaning around Isaac to get a muffin for herself.

"Apparently Scott's seen a porno involving bacon," Erica says, waving her muffin wrapper. "And of course it's different. Watching porn is awkward. Reading has no awkward visuals with badly backlit dicks."

"I . . . wouldn't know," Isaac says.

Allison leans over and whispers something into Scott's ear. He gives her look that approaches astonishment and immediately flushes bright pink. "Allison!"

Erica looks over at the two of them curiously. Curious enough that she's stopped vulturing Stiles for the moment, although her stomach is still growling. "What? Now you have to share."

"No," Scott says. "No, we do not . . ."

Lydia rolls her eyes and says, "Whatever Allison is suggesting you film, personally I do not want to hear about it."

Erica just laughs and eats her muffin. "I still question porn that involves bacon."

"It didn't involve bacon!" Scott protests, his face still flushed pink. "Just a guy feeding a girl. That's all! Geez, guys . . ."

"Hey, look, breakfast is ready," Stiles says, and sets a platter of French toast and a plate of bacon down on the kitchen table. "Your omelet will be another minute, Erica. The rest of you ungrateful asshats just get scrambled eggs." Another dish joins the others on the table.

"You're awesome." Erica kisses the fucking cook on the cheek one more time before sitting down at the table and getting herself some French toast and bacon. She takes two slices of toast, considers this for a minute, and then grabs a third. Lydia passes her some syrup while the others dish up their own breakfast.

Just as they're diving in, Derek shambles into the room, dressed in a pair of jeans and nothing else. He snakes an arm around Stiles and rubs his cheek against his hair in a groggy sort of greeting. "I smell those cinnamon muffins you make," he says.

Stiles looks at the empty muffin pan. "Uh . . ."

Erica tries to become one with her chair while still pouring syrup all over her French toast.

Derek's eyes track over to the pan as well. "All of them. They ate _all_ of them." He isn't sure whether or not he should glare at the pack or just go back to bed. He compromises by resting his forehead on Stiles' shoulder.

Stiles clears his throat. "Seriously, Derek, what kind of alpha do you think I am?" He takes a step backwards to open the oven and pull out a second tray. "These are the ones with extra cinnamon."

Erica stops trying to pretend she's furniture and takes a large bite of her French toast. "Oh my God."

"I should never have doubted," Derek agrees. He reaches around Stiles for a muffin, seeming content to just keep leaning on the younger man.

"And, omelet," Stiles says, moving carefully so as not to make Derek fall over as he swings around and scoops the omelet out of the pan and into Erica's plate. "Derek, she's been eating everything in sight since she got up. Is that normal?"

Erica would turn to pay attention, but then she would have had to stop eating, so instead she just keeps her ears open. Derek is pulling his muffin apart and eating it slowly. "It's not common," he says with a shrug. "It's the body trying to fuel repair work. Remember when Peter basically ripped my lungs out and I'm pretty sure nearly severed my spine, if the near total numbness was anything to go by?"

Stiles blinks. Frowns. "No. When was that?"

Scott throws a piece of bacon at him. "At the school, dumbass."

"Oh, right!" Stiles shakes his head. "What does it say about my life that really, that night just doesn't stand out?"

"That you need a vacation." Derek catches the bacon and eats it, then stabs a finger at Scott and says, "At least he didn't throw me under the bus." Scott looks vaguely chagrined, but Derek isn't really mad about it anymore. "My point is that when I finally crawled home, I ate about a dozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, between . . ." He cuts himself off before he can finish with 'hacking up blood and bone fragments'. Stiles doesn't need to hear that. "Food. Sometimes we just need the fuel."

"So is this going to happen all the time?" Stiles asks, privately alarmed. "Or is it just a one-time thing?"

Derek loops an arm around Stiles' shoulders and presses a hand to his chest in an understated, calming, comforting gesture, having heard the climb in Stiles' heart rate. "Should be just this once, during the change, while everything is set right and she gets on her feet."

"Whew," Stiles says. "'Cause no offense, Erica, but I don't know how we would afford to feed you otherwise."

"I was wondering how I was going to avoid getting fat," Erica confesses, before she starts eating the bacon off of Scott's plate.

"Speaking of which . . ." Derek keeps his arm hooked around Stiles' shoulders and steers him into a chair. "Eat."

"Yes, mommy," Stiles says, reaching for the French toast.

"Just be glad I'm not asking what time you got up," Derek says, sitting down next to him.

"Just be glad I'm not asking why you're not wearing a shirt," Stiles says. He turns to Erica and says, "You should have _seen_ Ms. McCall's face the first time she comes down into her kitchen, and there's Derek, stark naked, drinking a cup of coffee. I thought she was going to pass out."

"Did you get photos?" Erica asks, grinning that evil grin.

"Better than your father the _sadist_," Derek mutters. "I need coffee," he adds, popping out of his chair.

"Now this is a story I've got to hear," Erica says. Derek glares at her, and she gives a little shrug. "Wolf hearing, remember?"

Stiles is smirking. "So Derek just comes downstairs into my kitchen naked, right? And my dad looks right at him and asks, 'are you having sex with my son?' I thought Derek was going to _die_. He nearly choked on his coffee."

"I burned myself on the damned coffee." Derek shoves an index finger in Stiles' face. "You're lucky I didn't break the mug." He subsides into a manly pout. "He just kept asking horrible questions. Then he said it was _my_ job to make sure Stiles used condoms. What the hell is that about?"

"Well," Lydia says slowly, "when two people care about each other very much . . ."

"One has to make sure that the other is wearing a condom for sexual activity that the first will be taking no part in?" Derek asks.

Stiles flushes red. Erica takes pity on him and says, "So, you two don't, uh, don't have a thing?"

They blink at her. "Why does everyone think that?" Derek asks.

Stiles lets his forehead thunk against the table.

"Did I just break him?" Erica asks the pack at large.

"No, that was pretty much all Derek," Scott says.

Isaac offers Erica a shy smile and says, "I sort of assumed the same thing, I mean, the way they . . . you know . . . cuddle."

Derek scowls at them. "He's pack."

"You don't cuddle with Scott," Lydia says.

Scott and Derek both recoil from each other simultaneously. "We have mutual respect," Derek says.

"Stiles is the common ground," Scott adds.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "My _point_, Derek, is that you can't say 'oh, you all make too much out of the cuddling thing, I only cuddle with Stiles because he's pack'. You don't cuddle anyone else 'just because they're pack', or at least not as much or in the same way. So don't pretend to be completely confused when everyone on the planet assumes you two are dating."

Loudly, Stiles says, "Hey, guys, look! A change of subject!"

Derek apparently agrees with the idea of changing the subject, or possibly just doesn't know what to do with or how to counter Lydia's statement. His jaw tightens just a bit and he turns away, saying nothing.

"Wow, uh, sorry," Erica says. "I didn't mean to bring up something touchy."

"No, it's cool, it's fine," Stiles says. "Me and Derek are bros." He gives Derek a light punch to the shoulder. "He just likes me better than the rest of you."

Derek huffs, but says to Erica, "You didn't do anything wrong." He opens his mouth to say something else, changes his mind, and comes up with, "I need more coffee." He stands abruptly to go get some, so he can put his back to the others for a minute, but runs a hand over Erica's head and hair on his way by.

Erica just looks confused, both by Derek's attitude and the fact that what he did made her feel better. "What."

"Hey," Scott says suddenly, "Erica, you should call your mom. Make sure she knows you're okay."

"Yeah, she called around eight," Stiles says. "She talked to Scott's mom, who said she'd checked on you and you were fine. But I'm sure she'd appreciate hearing your voice."

Erica raises her eyebrows between bites of omelet. "She held out 'til eight? I'm impressed. She usually checks on me every morning at six." Erica would like to sound annoyed at this, like her mother is overprotective and it infringed on her rights as a teenager, but she really can't. Her father's pre-bed check at midnight and her mother's six AM check are habits formed from need when she was younger, and to be fair, it's saved her a time or two since. Plus she knows they do it because they care.

"Well, she probably doesn't want you to lose your new friends," Allison says. They can all remember how startled Erica's mother had been when she had come into the hospital room to find the pack hanging out with Erica. In fact, her initial response had been 'are these people bothering you?' and it had taken Erica several tries to convince her that no, these were not some jerks who had showed up to tease or bully her.

"Yeah, calling at six AM, pretty much not cool." Erica grins. "She also tried to give me a talk yesterday before coming over about watching my language." Clearly this amuses her. "I left my phone upstairs," she adds, then crams a huge mouthful of omelet into her face before pushing back from the table.

"This is awesome," Stiles says, with a huge grin on his face. "An excuse to cook as much as I want!"

"You need an excuse?" Scott asks, with more than a bit of sarcasm.

Derek finally makes his way back over to the table. "I hate to agree with Scott, but he does have a point."

Lydia and Allison both roll their eyes at Derek.

"No, I don't need an excuse," Stiles says. "However, you have _no idea_ how much I can cook when I _do_ have an excuse."

"Am I going to have to confiscate your whisk?" Scott asks.

Stiles gives him a look. "I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that."

Scott laughs. From behind his coffee mug, Derek may mumble something about 'gingersnaps' followed by 'please'. "Screw that, I'm going to make a quiche," Stiles says. "A motherfucking _quiche_. Match that, Food Network."

Erica comes back in and plunks down into her seat. "That sounds dirty. Does it taste as good as it sounds?"

"It does when I make it," Stiles says. "Everything cool with your mom?"

Erica nods. "I even convinced her that I could stay out until tonight, but that's all I'm gonna get without her seeing my face." She leans back in the chair and nibbles at her lower lip. "Speaking of which . . . I don't look like a zombie anymore." Self-consciousness saturates every motion as she worries at her napkin. "Maybe even a little pretty. Am I a little pretty? Just a little?"

Stiles blinks at her. Everyone else just blinks at her. Stiles says, "Seriously?" and both Allison and Lydia shoot him a look, a look which obviously suggests that only a _guy_ could say something so insensitive at a time like this. He sees the look and hastily adds, "Of course you're pretty. You didn't know that?"

Erica shakes her head. Scott opens his mouth, then remembers how badly he misjudged things during his and Allison's short break-up. He closes his mouth. He doesn't understand women. Allison seems to approve of this, because she reaches over the table and gives Erica's hand a squeeze. "You really are," she says.

Lydia gives Erica a discerning look, then says, "The bite has helped, but I think that's mainly just because you look healthy and got a good night's sleep for once. Your hair needs a lot of work, if we're going to be frank, but your eyes are nice and your skin is actually pretty good."

"You have good bone structure," Derek chips in. Several people blink at him, including Stiles. "What?" he demands, and Stiles raises his hands in surrender.

Scott smirks. "Artists notice these things."

"I'm going to kill you," Derek informs him. "_Slowly_."

"Wait, what am I missing now?" Erica demands.

"Nothing," Derek says flatly.

"Derek's not an artist," Stiles says, "because that's much too sensitive and unmanly a career for a werewolf like him. He totally doesn't have a secret studio on the north side of town, he definitely hasn't painted a picture of me in a red cloak with hood, and he absolutely never notices things like a girl's bone structure."

"It's a hoodie, you uneducated twit," Derek says, and proceeds to engage in an epic pout. "And it's not done so nobody should be looking at it." A beat. "Asshole."

Stiles blows him a kiss.

"I just got a _great_ idea," Allison says, which from Stiles would draw immediately scrambling for bomb shelters, but from Allison evokes only mild interest. "Makeovers!"

Scott pulls away. Makeovers translate in bro-code into 'run away!' He edges away from his girlfriend and closer to Stiles.

Lydia lets out a happy squeal and claps her hands. "Yes! We should go shopping!"

"Uh . . . I don't have any money. Or . . . know how to shop." Erica tries to back away from the table. "Unless we're talking about shopping on the internet."

Lydia turns to Derek and says, "Mastercard."

"What?" Derek scowls at her. "You have plenty of money."

"This is a pack expense," Lydia says, tossing her hair.

Isaac clears his throat from the end of the table. "I don't want to be Reverend Killjoy over here, but you might want to consider waiting a little while before buying clothes, because uh . . ." He gestures to the demolished plates of food on the table. "No offense, really, please don't kill me, but whatever size you are now, you might not stay that way."

Erica marches over and actually hugs Isaac. "That would be awesome."

Isaac just blinks at her, and Lydia lets out a snort of laughter and says, "Isaac, don't start thinking that suggesting a girl is going to gain weight is a good thing. These are unique circumstances." She heaves a melodramatic sigh. "Fine, we'll put off the shopping for clothes. However, a salon and a manicure is an absolute must. Mastercard."

Derek grudgingly forks it over. "Why am I paying for everything? Stiles is the alpha."

"Because Stiles doesn't complain. So it's more fun to ask you."

Derek raises an eyebrow. "If I didn't complain, you'd use that as a reason."

"True," Lydia agrees. She scrapes the last of the eggs off her plate and tucks the Mastercard away into a pocket.

Allison gives Erica a somewhat concerned frown and says, "Your parents won't freak out if you come home looking a little different, will they?"

"Uh . . . honestly, I have no clue what I'm going to tell my parents about any of this, because they're going to notice." She can't hide her anxiety, shredding her napkin into little pieces. "No matter what."

"I would go with the truth," Scott says. "That worked for me and Stiles. One of us can go with you, if you want."

"I can do that?" she asks, sounding startled. "Just tell them? 'Hey Mom and Dad, werewolves?'"

"I might try to ease them into it a little more," Lydia says dryly.

"How the hell do you ease someone into 'werewolf'?" Erica asks.

"I'd like to know too," Isaac says, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

"Don't ask me," Stiles says. "Scott didn't believe me when I tried to ease _him_ into it."

"Okay, now I'm confused," Isaac says. "I thought that Scott's the werewolf and you're the crazy guy who hangs out with werewolves. Why would you be breaking it to him?"

Stiles makes a little scoffing noise and says, "Because I figured it out _way_ before he did. Like, seriously, at least a full day. Though I was sort of joking at first. Then . . . I wasn't. 'Cause dude. My best friend had turned into a frickin' _werewolf_."

"Exactly!" Erica announces. "You can't ease someone into it."

"No, you really can't," Scott agrees. "My mom pretty much had an epic freakout. But seriously, Erica, we'll go with you if you want. We can help keep them calm. Or at least calm them down afterwards."

Erica nods. "Yeah. Come with me. Please."

"We shouldn't mob them, and Derek's too scary," Stiles says, which makes Derek glower at him. "Thank you for that demonstration. Scott, do you think your mom would be willing to go?" he asks, and Scott nods. "Good, okay. That'll help a lot. A reasonable adult being there."

"Okay," Erica says, like she's trying to gather her courage. "We can go shopping and then I'll tell my parents I'm a werewolf." She looks at them, all of these self-confident, self-contained people. "Or maybe like a werewolf in training. Is there a manual?"

"Nope," Stiles says. "You'll have to bumble through with the rest of us."

Erica slumps. Then reaches out and steals the bacon off the nearest available plate.

"Right then," Lydia says. "Let's go, ladies! We've much to do and less time to do it in!"


	10. Chapter 10

_I would just like to put a disclaimer here to state that I know absolutely nothing about fashion. Medical stuff? Yep. Cooking? No problem. Fashion? Dear Lord, why am I writing a chapter about this?_

* * *

Chapter Ten

Erica regards the hairdresser's chair like it might try to eat her. Sure, she had been talking about cutting all her hair out not too long ago, but that was just frustrated crazy talk. This was the real deal. She hadn't been to a hair stylist in . . . possibly ever.

Okay, not ever. But it has been years. Very definitely years. She watches as Lydia has some arcane but highly educated chat with the stylist before blurting out, "I don't want it short. I don't want to be one of those girls where you can't tell I'm a girl from behind because I have no hair left."

"Honey," Lydia says, "that won't be a concern, trust me. Hair or no hair." But she turns back to the stylist and says, "Not too short."

The stylist nods and gives Erica a reassuring smile before tying the bib around her and telling her to lean back so they could get her hair washed. She does as she's asked, actually used to being positioned and handled from her many times in the hospital, along with all the different imaging studies that have been done over the years. This is much nicer. It's like a head massage. She grins suddenly. "I just realized I'm never going to need an MRI done again. Ever. I think this calls for ice cream."

Allison laughs a little, over perusing the different hair care products. "Definitely," she agrees.

"Gelato," Lydia says. "Or sorbet, at least . . ."

Allison turns and points a bottle of Paul Mitchell something-or-other at Lydia in a manner that she has clearly picked up from Papa Stilinski. "One: you couldn't get fat if someone paid you. Two: do you have any idea how much _sugar_ is in sorbet? Three: Erica can certainly use the extra calories. Four: as the person here actually in danger of gaining weight, I want actual ice cream." There's a pause. "I'm . . . not gaining weight, though? Right?"

"Of course not," Lydia assures her, without a hint of mockery. "You look great. Stiles may cook copious amounts of food, but at least it's always healthy food." She shakes her head a little and says, "I'm a little afraid of what the kitchen is going to look like when we get back to the house."

Allison smiles at her. "Thanks."

Erica relaxes into the hair-washing, just listening to the two of them talk. She realizes that she can hear their heartbeats and how basically steady they are. There was a slight rise in Allison's for just a few moments when Lydia complimented her, but that was okay. That was just some excitement. Erica's starting to know that feeling herself. But it's nice to just listen to them and get to know them that way. She had never thought she would be mixing with them like this. The pretty girls and the popular people, although it's universally agreed that Stiles is kind of strange. She likes him. She likes all of them.

Meanwhile, Allison is adding, "I'm worried that the table will collapse. Or Stiles will."

"I'm pretty sure that if he actually starts to hurt himself, Derek will intervene," Lydia says, amused. "My question is, will he go for quantity, or extravagance?"

Allison ponders this while rearranging the shampoo bottles into a new and attractive pattern. "Both. He'll start with quantity and then he'll get an _idea_."

Lydia laughs. "That is so true!"

The hairdresser interjects here to have Erica sit up, and starts combing through her hair. "Your hair is really fine and brittle," she mentions, as she trims away the split ends. "You're going to need a good conditioner to add more body to it," she adds, and starts talking about the different products they carry, which Erica has never heard of.

"Oh, man, you're speaking a language only Lydia understands," Erica says. "I'll just trust the two of you not to make my hair fall out." She looks at herself in the mirror. "Can you do something that'll make it look cute both when it's pulled up and when it's down?"

"Can do, honey," the stylist says. "It's got a great natural wave to it, which will help."

"The quality of your hair might improve now that you're not sick anymore," Lydia says. She had already explained to the stylist when they came in that Erica was a friend who was just recovering from 'a lengthy illness', which had minimized questions about her looks and style in general.

"It's always been kind of flyaway. That's why I kept it in those buns and stuff." Erica watches as the woman cuts away a layer of her hair and then pins up a section on the left. She wonders what her mother is going to think of all this. "It's kinda funny how I never gave a shit before. The wonders of drugs."

"Well, you won't be the first person around here not to care about fashion," Lydia says, and rolls her eyes. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to replace all of Stiles' clothes, just to see whether or not he notices."

"If we replaced his and Scott's at the same time, they would notice each other," Allison says despairingly. "I can live with Stiles' clothes. I just wish he would let his poor hair grow out."

"Yeah," Lydia says. "I'm thinking of hiding his electric razor. Except then with our luck, he would decide he looks good with a goatee."

"He would stroke it like some evil overlord," Allison says, demonstrating.

Erica starts laughing. "Oh my God. It wouldn't be a normal goatee, either. It'd be like a Tony Stark goatee."

"And in ten years, Stiles could maybe pull that off," Lydia says. "But now . . .?"

"No," all three girls say in unison.

The three of them chat first about different possible plots to force Stiles to stop abusing his hair, and then move on to other topics while Erica tries to sit as still as she could. Before she knows it, the stylist is announcing that she's finished and holding up a small mirror so Erica can see the back of her hair, asking how she likes it.

"It looks bouncy!" Erica says, with evident glee. Lydia reaches over and tweaks one of the curls, which does indeed bounce. She's brought out the blonde highlights in Erica's hair as well, so it no longer looks like she's wearing a bunch of badly arranged straw on top of her head.

"Very nice," Lydia says, with an approving nod. She lets Erica continue to stare into the mirror while she pays the stylist with Derek's credit card.

Erica is bouncing now herself, sort of like a child on Christmas, and wearing a wide grin. "Now what?"

"Well, I know we shouldn't buy you many clothes, but . . ." Allison trails off, not sure how to phrase her opinion without coming off as a bitch.

"But a small wardrobe change is definitely necessary," Lydia states firmly. "We can always buy more if you do change sizes." Her eyes scan up and down Erica's body. "We need to start at the bottom."

"So, shoes?" Erica says to Lydia. To Allison, she says, "I'm wearing a gray sack. It's okay." She looks down. "No, this one's blue. But I think that makes my point. You can say it."

Allison gives her that warm smile, and Lydia tosses her hair and says, "Not _that_ bottom." She points to the Victoria's Secret shop that's two doors down in the mall. "_Those_ bottoms."

Erica blinks. "Oh." There's a pause. "We get to use Derek's credit card to buy me cute panties and stuff?"

"Maybe I'll use my credit card for that," Lydia says thoughtfully. "If he sees it on his statement, he might have a coronary."

"Then he should absolutely buy me panties! We'll loosen him up," Erica says, and sails into the store like she has some idea of what she's doing, which she doesn't. Lydia and Allison both follow her, giggling, and Lydia hails the nearest clerk with a winning smile.

"We need to get her measurements taken," Lydia says, and the clerk nods and gives them a polite smile in return.

Erica just stands there like a deer in headlights, but again goes where she's told and holds still when she needs to. Once they have her measurements, Allison turns to her and says, "Okay, here's your first important decision. Do you want to wear dark-colored clothes or light?"

Erica gives this serious consideration. "Dark."

"Some of each," Lydia says, at the same time. "It's not like we're only going to buy you one bra," she adds with a shrug.

Erica is starting to get into this. "Something lacey. And red. And black." This time her grin is kind of wolfy.

Amused, Allison says, "This is going to be interesting, I can tell."

Erica waits in anticipation and then whisks her new bras off to the changing room. There are so many choices. Turquoise! Fire engine red! Lime green with little pink hearts! Lydia has loaded her up with many choices. Most of them fit fairly well, although she sends a few out to get swapped for different sizes. She also spends several quality minutes just _staring_ at herself in the mirror. When she comes out with her final choices, Allison says, "How'd it go?"

"They bounce! My tits _bounce_!" Erica does the same to illustrate. She's kept the lime green bra with hearts on, taking off the tags so they could pay for it at the register. "My tits bounce and my hair bounces and this is the best day ever!"

Allison covers her mouth with one hand, trying not to laugh hysterically. "So many people are staring at us right now," she says.

"Let them stare," Lydia says, tossing her hair and heading for the panty section. "You don't really need to try them on," she says. "Just grab anything that strikes your fancy."

"Awesome!" Erica gives that feral grin to all the people staring. "They bounce!" she announces cheerfully, giving a hop to demonstrate, and then she's off. In the end, she does limit herself to a relatively reasonable selection of bras and cute panties, the bikini kind she's always thought were sexy on magazine models but never came home in her mother's practical bags from Wal-Mart for a daughter that could barely be bothered to get out of bed in the morning.

"Where to next?" Allison says, as Lydia hands over the credit card to pay for Erica's selections. "Clothes, I guess?"

"Lunch?" Erica suggests. "Or, uh, second breakfast? Elevenses? Whatever. Food?"

"Wow, really?" Allison says, and then turns a little pink. "I mean, I'm not trying to be a bitch, but . . . wow."

"No, it's cool," Erica says, swinging her bag of lingerie back and forth as they leave the store. "I'm pretty sure I've eaten more today than I have all week."

"Well, to the food court we go, then," Lydia says, linking her arm through Erica's.

Erica holds her free elbow out to Allison, who takes it, and once they're linked up, lets Lydia lead the way. "This is the most fun I've had in ever, I think."

"It's nice to have a girl's day out," Allison agrees. "You need at least three girls for a good shopping trip. Not that it's not fun when it's just Lydia and I, but . . ."

"Also we get to dress you up!" Lydia says brightly. "That will be awesome. You are going to attract so much male attention when we're done with you."

"Are you two crazy?" Erica asks, as she scans the food court. "Even I noticed that you're the two prettiest girls in school."

Allison grins a little and says, "I really can't wait for her to look in a mirror when we're done."

Lydia twines a finger around a strand of her hair and says, "Of course we are, Erica, but everyone knows that Allison's taken and I'm way out of their league. You are going to be hip-deep in horny teenaged guys by the end of your first day back at school. Trust me."

There's that wolf grin again. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like fun."

She gets a heaping serving of barely edible food at Panda Express, while Lydia politely turns her nose up at it and gets a sandwich instead, and Allison claims she's still stuffed from breakfast and not at all hungry. They spend most of lunch debating the merits of various boys in their classes or the class above them.

"Of course, having a boyfriend outside the pack would be virtually impossible," Allison remarks, after discussion of a particularly good candidate.

Erica makes a gesture with her fork to indicate that she wants Allison to elaborate, because she's chewing, and she does have enough manners not to speak with a mouth full of fried rice.

"Just . . . too many secrets to keep," Allison says, shaking her head. "Scott nearly went out of his mind trying to hide it from me. Plus we spend almost all our time together, so any boyfriend not in the pack would probably be weirded out by that."

Erica finishes chewing. "Why was Scott trying to hide it from you? I mean, if you're from a family of hunters, didn't you kinda know that it wasn't a big deal that he wouldn't be much fun to be around a few days a month?" She pauses to contemplate that. "Oh shit. Us girls must be awful. We're like a bitch double whammy."

Lydia lets out a snort of laughter, wrapping up the second half of her sandwich for later. "The full moon doesn't make you bitchy. It's a whole different ball of wax."

"Anyway, Scott was mostly afraid that me being from a hunter family would mean my family would try to kill him," Allison says, "which they kinda sorta did. It was this whole Romeo and Juliet sort of thing, which has at this point been settled, mostly, thank God."

"Stiles and Derek tried to explain, and I listened. I really did. But I think some of it just rolled off because I'm not going to get it until I'm there, and I didn't really care anyway." Erica gives a little shrug. "I'm glad you two got together. Scott's a nice guy. And Romeo and Juliet was a stupid play."

Lydia opens her mouth, then just gives a rueful nod. "Buuuuut, if you did still want a boyfriend, there are two eligible guys in the pack. Three if you count Derek. Which . . . I wouldn't, personally."

"Wait," Erica says. "You will include Stiles in the dating pool, but not Derek? That just makes no sense."

"Well, it's not based on their relationship or non-relationship with each other," Allison says. "It's just that Stiles is your age and also interested in dating girls, whereas Derek is twenty-four and pretty much if a girl isn't in the pack, he wants nothing to do with her. Not because he's gay. Just because he's anti-social."

Erica shrugs. "I'm good anyway. At least for now. I mean, I'm not going to be picking anyone out right now. If nothing else, my parents can only take so many shocks at once." She takes a small, experimental sip of the soda and then makes a face. "Okay, the soda was a mistake. Too soon." She has a bottle of water that she had purchased as a backup, since one of the medications she takes has a tendency to make carbonated beverages taste awful. "Isn't Derek bothered by the fact that everyone is younger than him? Or does he have friends his own age?"

"I don't think it's the pack he would have chosen," Lydia says thoughtfully, "but, well, it's the one he has. And to him, the pack is everything. So he just . . . doesn't let it bother him, I think."

Erica nods a little, absorbing this and taking the opportunity to scrape the last of the food off her plate, chew, and swallow. "I guess he doesn't have anyone else, does he. All the money in the world can't make that better."

"He's a lot less gloomy than he used to be, though," Lydia says, rising to her feet and picking up the tray with the trash. "Really."

Allison laughs. "How gloomy can you be with Stiles literally shoving cookies in your face?"

"Well, he did try to keep up appearances for a while . . ."

They go halfway across the mall to the store that Lydia has proclaimed has the best clothing for young ladies. They haven't been browsing for more than three minutes when Erica hears someone giggle. Her head jerks up and she looks around, but nobody's nearby. She shakes herself a little and holds a blue top against her chest. "What about this one?"

"I like it," Allison says, at the same time that Erica clearly hears a voice say, "Yeah, right, in your dreams."

Erica looks up again, this time taking a hard look around. She wants to make sure it's really directed at her before she says anything. All she sees are two female employees, one of them behind the register while the other folds shirts on a table nearby.

"I think she heard us," the cashier says uneasily.

"What? No way, she's all the way over there," the other girl says, dropping a shirt. "Should I go tell her that the dumpsters are _behind_ the mall?"

Erica turns to Lydia and raises her eyebrows as if silently asking the etiquette of hearing things from across the store and then destroying people. She gets enough of this shit at school. In a store like this, they're basically paying the employees to be nice to them. But Lydia's not really looking at her; she's looking across the store with her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me," she says, and marches away from them, her heels clicking with every step.

Allison watches her go, having been alerted as soon as Erica looked up. She had long ago learned that it always paid to tune in when the wolves heard something she didn't. "They said something horrible, didn't they," she whispers.

"Yep," the blonde girl whispers back.

"Then relax and wait for the floor show."

"Awesome," Erica says, with that wolf grin, which is really starting to look at home on her.

"Excuse me," Lydia says, to the girl folding shirts, as the cashier is suddenly extremely occupied with changing out her receipt tape. "I was wondering if you could help me find something."

"Of course," the employee says, with a charmingly insincere smile.

"I don't know if you'll be able to," Lydia says, doubt creeping into her voice. "I think it's going to be kind of small."

"Small . . .?" the girl says.

"Yes," Lydia says. "See, I'm looking for your brain."

Erica starts laughing and repeats the gist of this to Allison, who joins in the giggling.

While the girl just stares at her, open-mouthed, Lydia continues. "See, I know that you guys are paid on commission, because I shop here all the time. Here we come in, obviously looking to improve my friend's wardrobe. We were planning on buying, at minimum, three or four full outfits for her. But now we will buy nothing. Which means you will earn nothing. But that isn't your biggest mistake. That? Is not removing your nametag as soon as I started over here. Because now I know who you are, and yes, you had better believe that I will be calling your manager and telling him about your behavior." She offers the girl a sweet smile and says, "I hope if you're ever recovering from a lengthy illness, people treat you with the same courtesy you've shown here today. And by the way? Your boyfriend is cheating on you with Jessi Adams. And pretty much three quarters of the girls in the junior year know about it, too. Give him and his four-inch dick my regards."

Allison is laughing so hard that she's holding onto her belly by the time Lydia gets back over to them. Erica's grin looks awfully predatory for having only human teeth showing. "You, you are amazing. I think I need to hug you."

She states it mostly as a joke, but Lydia steps right over to her, puts both arms around her waist, and gives her a tight squeeze. Erica's a little taken off guard by the embrace, and even more so by the sudden and unexpected impulse to press close and cuddle right up to Lydia. She hugs back tightly, her nose pressed to Lydia's shoulder, letting the older girl run the show since she isn't sure what to do with herself.

"Aw, group hug!" Allison says, tossing her arms around both girls from the side. "Best day ever!" She squeezes tight for a moment and then says, "C'mon, girls, let's blow this popsicle stand."

"That was my first group hug!" Erica crows as she's towed out of the store, leaving the clothes that they had selected in piles on the floor behind them. "At least that didn't involve my parents," she admits as they move on to the next store.

"Oh, Julian is working today, excellent," Lydia says, as they enter the store. She waves to a tall young man across the store and calls out, "Yoohoo, Julian, I'm back!"

Laughing, the employee crosses the store and says, "Lookin' fine today, ladies," including all three of them in a quick gaze before adding, "But I think I can see why you're here . . .?"

Lydia smiles at him. "Erica's just getting better after being sick for a long time. Give us your best shot."

"Right this way, ladies," Julian says, and holds out a hand for Erica like some Disney prince. She blushes a little and takes it. It isn't long before he has her seated in a plush chair in front of the dressing area and is asking her questions or for her opinion while whisking items of clothing to and fro. Lydia often chips in her opinion as well, or says things that Erica doesn't understand like, "That's nice, but I don't know about the dropped waistline; do you have one with a basque waistline instead?" Allison runs around grabbing things she thinks would look good and offers many opinions on color if not style.

Before long, Erica is staring at herself in the mirror, dressed in jeans and V-neck shirt that's form-fitting enough to show off her breasts but loose enough that it doesn't emphasize her bony thinness. She's starting to look like a real girl. It's somewhat discomfiting. She stands in front of the mirror, hands and arms twitching because she isn't sure whether she wants to try to cover something up or flail and squee. After a moment, she settles for, "I'm not seizing. I promise."

"We know," Allison says, clearly a little amused.

Lydia is giving her that look that's critical in nature but somehow without being insulting. "Good!" she finally proclaims. "We'll be back in a month or two once we know what size she'll be in the long-term," she adds. To Erica, she says, "Do you want him to cut the tags off so you can stay in that outfit?"

Erica nods emphatically. Her hair bounces, which makes her giggle. "Awesome."

The others all laugh, and Julian cuts the tags off the outfit. Lydia takes that and the stack of clothes over to the register to pay. They've been fairly modest – three pairs of pants, four shirts, and a cute skirt (which she would be wearing now if she didn't have what she has deemed 'gorilla legs'). Lydia's chatting with the clerk, while Julian says to Erica, "So . . . can I have your number?"

This causes ineffectual opening and closing of Erica's mouth, and possibly a funny noise or two as she tries, inadvisably, to speak. Eventually she just nods and manages to enter it into his phone without dying.

"That was adorable," Allison says, as they leave the store. "You are adorable."

"He asked for my number," Erica says. She sounds like she might explode.

"Oh, Julian did?" Lydia gives an approving nod. "He's kind of a player, but he's got good taste."

"So we aren't talking about dating? Even better," Erica says, and this time she does let out a small squee.

Allison giggles a little. "I can see that you're really going to enjoy this whole 'not being sick all the time thing'," she says, steering them into a shoe store.

"This is the best," Erica agrees. "I'm going to enjoy the shit out of it." She stares at the shoes. "Is this what going into Disney World feels like?"

"At our age, this is better than Disney World," Lydia says, amused. "Let's see, we should get you one pair of decent sneakers, one pair of sandals, then at least one pair of pretty shoes in black and in brown . . ."

Erica blinks at Lydia. "I need that many pairs of shoes?" She looks at Allison, who only shrugs and holds her hands up as if to surrender. She's not getting between Lydia and her impeccable fashion sense.

"Oh, no," Lydia says. "You need _far_ more than that. That's why I said 'at least'. Say you're wearing a white top and navy pants? You can't wear brown or black shoes with that. Ideally you should have shoes in black, brown, tan, navy, white, and at least one bright color, and all of those colors in both a summer shoe like a sandal and closed-toe shoe both casual and dressy . . . but let's start with the basics, shall we?"

"I . . ." Erica does some quick math to calculate. Not including the sneakers, that's eighteen pairs of shoes that Lydia feels are necessary for a minimum collection. She throws her hands up as well. "You know what? Lead me to the shoes!"

Lydia asks her size and then immediate delegates Allison to look for sneakers, since style obviously won't be as important there, and takes on the rest of the shoes by herself. She comes back a minute later with a young man behind her carrying eight precariously stacked boxes.

Erica smiles up from where she's lacing up a pile of sneakers. Allison looks at them critically once they're on her feet. She had picked out a practical pair of cross-trainers, since she knew exercise was going to be in her future. "Walk around in them some," she instructs the younger girl, who does so. "How do they feel?"

Erica shuffles, she walks, she bounces. "A little loose. Maybe half a size smaller? Or thicker socks."

"Smaller sneakers," Allison says, shaking her head. "They'll stretch as you wear them."

While she goes to find the sneakers in a smaller size, Lydia sets down her choices. Three pairs of closed-toe black shoes in a variety of styles, two flat and one with platform heels, two pairs of brown closed-toe shoes – one of the same variety as the black, and one different – and three pairs of sandals in different styles. "Take your pick," she says, beaming.

"It's like Christmas." She starts with the black flats first, and sets aside the pair she likes better, then picks up the platform heels a little suspicious. She eyes them. They do not eye her back. "I've never worn heels before."

"No time like the present," Lydia says brightly, as Allison returns with the sneakers and takes out her phone, fiddling with it briefly.

"Right." With that, Erica pulls them on and stands up. She looks around and remarks, "The world looks totally different from just a few inches up." She grins and takes an experimental step, only wobbling a little before she gets the hang of it. She squees again, her arms windmilling a little. "This is the best. Mom doesn't even like me standing on chairs and shit. That rock climbing wall at school? That lecture lasted for _hours_."

"I bet," Lydia says. She gives an approving nod. "They look good on you. Heels are always good for bringing out the best parts of a woman's body."

"I have to try on all the heels!" Erica proclaims, but she tries on all the shoes that Lydia has brought over, heels or no heels. Half an hour later, she has four pairs of shoes that she likes – sneakers, black platform heels, brown flats, and black sandals – and they're getting ready to pack up when, on their way to the register, she walks past a pair of boots. And not just any boots. These are bitch boots. The kind that go all the way up to the knee, with unnecessary buckles and a four-inch heel.

Erica stops, and backs up. Then she actually pets them, grinning that wolf grin. "I have to try them on. I _have_ to."

"Of course," Lydia says, grabbing a pair in her size. The miraculous boots fit almost perfectly, and look amazing with the jeans she's wearing.

She totters for a moment, and then gets used to the lighter, smaller heels. "I feel like Catwoman or something."

Allison lets out a snort of laughter. "I cannot _wait_ to see the guys' faces when we get home."

Erica stops in her tracks. "Oh, that'll be fun. You'll take pictures, right?"

"Video," Allison says, grinning.

"Just like the video you took of her squeeing over her new shoes?" Lydia asks.

"What," Erica says.

Allison gives Lydia a narrow-eyed glance. "You weren't supposed to tell."

"Most likely not." Lydia sets down the shoes, including the box that the boots had come with, and whips out the credit card. "But it really was quite endearing."

Erica sticks her tongue out at them in her most mature move of the day. Lydia just lets out a snort of laughter as she pays for the shoes and says, "One last stop."

The last stop is make-up, which Erica is thinking she's not sure she'll actually even bother with on a day-to-day basis. But Lydia insists, so they sit down at one of those swanky counters and people slather things all over her skin. There's some debate over colors, and Erica can't help but roll her eyes at all of it, but then she gets a look at herself in the mirror when the woman is done with her.

"Damn, now I look super hot," Erica says with a grin. It's difficult to say exactly what's changed, because the makeup is well-done and therefore subtle. But her eyes stand out more now, her cheekbones are just a touch more prominent, her lips a little more full. It's a very good look on her. Apparently she _will_ want to learn to do this stuff on a daily basis.

Lydia pays one last time and then says, "Ready to go stop some hearts?"

Erica rubs her hands in front of her face, and her grin goes from feral to positively evil. "Abso-fucking-lutely. Also, a snack."

"Well, let's get going, then." Lydia's been busily texting away while they have this discussion. "They're at Stiles' place now. Not surprising. He would want his own kitchen if he were going to do any involved cooking. I'm sure he'll have something ready for you to munch on."

"Sweet." Erica gathers up her bags. Once they were back in the car, she shuffles around in her seat so she can see both of the other girls. "Thanks. For all of this."

Allison smiles at her. "You're welcome. It was fun. Thanks for being a good sport while we played dress-up with you."

"You kidding? The stuff that didn't fit was hilarious." Erica's quiet for a minute. "Maybe I can get my parents to cover the next round of clothes since they won't have to spend the money on medical."

"Don't worry about the money, seriously," Lydia says. "Derek has more than he knows what to do with. And I think it makes him feel better to spend it on us. Like he's . . . using it to bring the pack together."

Erica shrugs. "Oh, I know he has a fuckton of money. I mean, I dunno how much money his family had, but the insurance on the house plus some of the stuff in it, and the life insurance policies . . ." She lets out a low whistle.

"Maybe your family can help us get life insurance policies," Allison says thoughtfully. "Seems like it wouldn't be a terrible thing to have."

"Mom will flip her shit," Erica predicts. "I'll ask my dad who a good agent is. He's an inspector, but he knows who's a douche and who isn't."

"Maybe in a bit," Lydia says. "I know Derek has one already, and the rest of us are all minors so I don't think we're eligible to have one anyway."

"I don't actually know. But we're not that likely to kick the bucket, are we? I mean, I know that no one was joking about the hunter stuff, but still."

"No, we're pretty tough, all things considered," Lydia assures her, as Allison parks the car in Stiles' driveway. "We'll be fine."

"Cool." Erica gets out and stumbles a little on the uneven pavement of the driveway, and laughs about it. "Clearly, I need more practice."

"Makes perfect," Lydia agrees, as they walk past the sheriff's cruiser on their way to the door. Stiles' Jeep is parked on the street, as it usually is, so his father can get in and out of the garage quickly if he needs to. She gives the door a quick knock but doesn't wait for it to be answered, pushing it open and calling out, "We're back!" before going inside and pulling the front closet open to store her coat.

"In the kitchen!" Stiles shouts back, as if such a thing is necessary.

Erica sniffs. "Oh, fuck. What are you making?" She turns to the other two girls. "I'm not drooling, am I? You'd tell me if I was?"

Both girls reassure her that they would, and they move into the kitchen to find Stiles standing there leaning over the counter, chopping fruit. Derek is sitting on the counter next to him, close enough that his leg presses against Stiles' left arm where he holds the cutting board steady. Scott's sitting at the kitchen table doing chemistry homework with Isaac. All four look up when they come in, and the friendly expressions of greeting and smiles turn quickly into gap-jawed expressions of shock. Stiles takes a minute to notice the way the room has gone silent, and turns around holding the cutting board, which currently has a bunch of sliced strawberries on it, and says, "Hey, Erica, do you like – Erica?!" he squeaks when he catches sight of her, and promptly fumbles and drops the cutting board and all its contents.

Erica leaps forward and catches the board, her hair and breasts bouncing. "Safe!"

Derek leans over and catches a hold of Stiles, pulling him back against the counter and his legs so he doesn't fall over. He blinks at Erica over the top of Stiles' head.

Erica stands from her partial crouch. "Still bouncy! And strawberries, yum." She picks one up and is about to eat it when Lydia swoops in to take it and the cutting board away from her.

"Let's not do that," she says. "They'd start passing out from the blood leaving their brains."

"I, uh, buh, you, uh," Stiles says, still just blinking at her.

"I agree," Isaac says, staring just as blatantly.

Allison giggles. "It's okay, Scott. I won't hold it against you. Just this once."

"Wow," Scott says, with definite appreciation in his tone. "Just wow."

Derek gives Erica a reasonably polite onceover. "Very nice," he says. He means it sincerely enough, but he isn't going bibbly over her like the others.

Stiles is just staring, slack-jawed. He swallows and manages to look at Lydia and say, "What are you trying to _do_ to me?"

"Hey, I stopped her from eating the strawberries of sin," Lydia says, handing the cutting board back.

Erica, however, looks pleased. "Don't I look awesome now? And a guy asked for my number, and I think Lydia made a clerk cry because she _sucks_. The bitchy clerk does, not Lydia. Apparently her boyfriend has a four-inch penis. That must be a shame."

"I've heard that it's not what you have, but how you use it that counts," Allison says, "but four inches would be pushing it, I think."

"You, uhm." Stiles sets the cutting board down and rubs one hand over the back of his head. "You look nice. I mean, you look _great_."

She grins at him. "My tits and my hair _bounce_. It's awesome."

"You, uh, your, uhm," Stiles replies.

Derek reaches out and puts his hand over Stiles' eyes. "Just breathe. And then greet her with a proper hug."

"Right, right." Stiles wraps his arms around Erica's waist and then says, "Oh God you smell nice."

Derek grumps. "I didn't say to sniff her."

"And I can take the credit for it all on my own," Erica says, knowing that Stiles is talking about _her_ scent, not the fancy shampoo or the makeup or any of that. She's not sure how she knows this, but she does. She's also overwhelmed by that urge to cuddle again, and presses her face into Stiles' shoulder.

"Hey, save some for the rest of us." Isaac has gained some confidence during his month in the pack, and he gives Stiles' a friendly shove to the shoulder. "Can I cut in?"

Erica lets herself be passed over, snuggling right up to Isaac.

Derek nudges Stiles in the leg with his toes. "Food," he reminds him.

"Right," Stiles says, turning around. "The fruit is for after dinner. I'm making – well, it started out as a pot roast but then I realized that it would make really good beef carbonnade and, you probably don't care, anyway, if you're hungry there's some egg salad. I can make you a sandwich."

"I'd love a sandwich," Erica says, from where her face is squashed against Isaac's chest. She doesn't really want to move, but she might when food becomes available.

"Okey dokey." Stiles swings over the fridge and begins asking her questions which she has virtually no opinion on – white or wheat? Tomato? Pickle? – and assembles her a sandwich. When he turns around, Isaac has shifted so he's got an arm around Erica's shoulders and she's sort of tucked underneath it. The angle makes her cleavage very obvious, and Stiles stares hard at Erica's shoulder while he hands over the food.

"Uh . . ." Erica gives him a funny look, having never experienced the shoulder-stare before.

"Sorry!" Stiles squeaks, quickly turning back to his cooking.

"I'm so confused!" Erica blurts out.

"He was trying really hard not to stare at your chest," Lydia informs her. Stiles flushes bright pink and focuses on the fruit he's slicing, but doesn't argue.

"Oh." Erica looks down at it. So does Isaac. "Why? It's kind of awesome now. I'd stare at it."

Stiles goes from pink to red. "It's not polite," he says.

Erica laughs. "I called you a used-up douchenozzle once."

"I deserved it," Stiles replies.

"Well, I deserve to have people looking at my boobs," Erica says with a decisive nod. "Because they're awesome."

"I . . . think I'll let Isaac take on that duty," Stiles says. "He seems to have a pretty good start on it."

Isaac's head and attention jerk up. "Huh? What? Sorry!"

Derek snorts, trying to hide his laughter. The others don't bother. "Don't worry, I was the same way after I met Allison," Scott says. "I _never_ knew where to look."

"Everywhere," Allison tells him. Derek makes a face.

"Everywhere what?" Sheriff Stilinski asks as he comes into the kitchen, reaching for a glass of water that he had left on the kitchen table. "Oh, hi guys. Hi . . ." He's caught blinking at Erica. "Erica?" he concludes, the word definitely a question.

Erica nods. "Apparently I clean up well," she says, pleased.

"Yes, you certainly do." Stilinski clears his throat and says, "Blink, Stiles. You're going to dry your eyeballs out."

"Okay, Dad," Stiles says, his face turning darker pink by the minute.

"I have to go pick some things up at the station, but I'll be back by five," he adds. "Erica, you might want to, uhm, if you did get a slightly more modest shirt, you may want to put that on before your parents get here." He tousles Stiles' hair and heads for the door.

"What?" Erica asks, confused.

"I was, uh, gonna mention that myself," Stiles says. "Your parents are going to be joining us for dinner. My dad called them."

Erica turns to face Stiles, her chin coming up, eyes narrowing. "Now why would he do a thing like that?" she asks.

Derek eyes her from behind Stiles, hops off the counter, and gets out of the line of fire. The others hastily back away a few steps as well, suddenly becoming very interested in Scott and Isaac's chemistry homework. Stiles, for his part, is unfazed. "You said you wanted us to be there when you told them about the werewolf thing," he says, "so I figured it'd be easiest if we just had them over for dinner. Scott's mom is going to come over, too."

"No warning?" Erica asks incredulously. "No 'hey Erica, is it okay if I do this behind your unsuspecting back?, you, you . . ." She stands there vibrating for a moment, and one can almost imagine her making a high-pitched whistle like a boiling tea kettle. "You twice-used condom!"

"Okay, wow," Stiles says. "You _said_ you wanted our help telling them. And we had to do it before you went home tonight, because if they saw you like that they'd have all sorts of questions, and you would've been stuck trying to explain by yourself."

"You could have asked! Or talked it over with me! Or I could have put my old clothes on for tonight until I decided what to do!" She picks up an orange that's sitting on the counter in the fruit basket and chucks it at Stiles' head.

Stiles reaches up and catches it before it can hit him, rather than dodge and have it break something. "Erica, if I'd asked, you would've come up with some reason we shouldn't do it. Think of it like ripping a Band-Aid off. Better to get it over with sooner rather than later."

Erica begins edging from pissed to pouting, because she knows that he's right. "I'm still mad at you." She folds her arms over her chest and adds, "If you do something like this to me again, I'm going to punch you. In the _dick_."

"Ohhhh-kay," Stiles says, trying not to grin at the sight of her pouty lower lip. It's somehow both adorable and sexy at the same time. He tries to his reaction to it by turning back to the counter and then offering her the fruit again. "Strawberry?"

She wrinkles her nose at him. "I demand chocolate."

"I think we can do that," Stiles says, and starts rummaging in the pantry.


	11. Chapter 11

_So as far as I know, canonically we know nothing about Erica's family beyond that her father works as an insurance guy and she didn't want her mother to know that she wasn't taking her medication. So I basically just invented parents for her. The series kind of hand-waved away the whole "I'm living in a warehouse with a subway car" and "I'm going to run away with Boyd" thing in regards to her family. So this probably won't turn out to be accurate at all. But it works!_

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Lydia ushers Erica upstairs to go through the clothes they bought and pick out a more modest outfit. There's no need to go back to the blue potato sack, she says, but maybe something a little less dramatic will help ease her parents into things. She changes into looser jeans and a nice sweater with a scoop neckline. The boots are replaced with the brown flats.

She and Allison coach her through the complete freak-out she has at the thought of facing her parents and breaking this news to them, which lasts a little longer than she would have expected. Then Sheriff Stilinski is home and Melissa McCall has arrived, and Erica goes back downstairs somewhat nervously.

"You look very nice," Melissa tells her, and she tries not to freak out again. Scott is setting the table while Stiles finishes his dinner preparations, and before long there are several dishes of amazing smelling food on the table, and then the doorbell rings and Stilinski leaves the dining room to answer it.

The table is packed quite full, because with Erica's parents, there will be eleven people and the table really only seats ten. So Sheriff Stilinski is seated at one end with Stiles on his right and Erica's parents on his left, and Melissa McCall is at the other end, with the pack filling in the rest, Erica next to her parents, Derek next to Stiles, Scott next to his mother, Allison next to Scott.

"Erica!" Cynthia Reyes gapes at her daughter, clearly stunned at this new look, as toned down as it is. They had stopped by the Reyes household briefly on their way to the mall, so Erica's parents could see that she was still alive and not seizing, and told them that they were going to go shopping and get her hair done. Even so, this is not what the Reyes parents had expected. "You . . . you look . . ."

Erica gives them a smile that's half-hopeful, half-worried. "Good? Good is what we were aiming for."

"You look _amazing_," Cynthia says, embracing her. Over Erica's shoulder, she gives her husband an astonished look. "I just, I'm just a little surprised, when you said 'makeover' this wasn't what I pictured."

"You look great, honey," Erica's father, Javier, says.

Erica returns the hug, clearly pleased by the compliment but in a much softer way than the compliments she was getting from the pack. "It wasn't really what I was expecting either, but uh, Lydia doesn't fuck around when it comes to shopping."

"Swear jar," Javier says automatically. Erica sticks her tongue out at him.

"Honey, how on earth did you pay for all this . . .?"

"Oh, it was my treat, Mrs. Reyes," Lydia smoothly interjects. "Don't even worry about it."

Derek opens his mouth to make an indignant protest over Lydia taking the credit for his bank account, but pauses at the idea of a twenty-four year old man buying a fifteen-year-old girl a complete makeover and new wardrobe opposed to a sixteen-year-old rich girl doing the same thing. Creepy. He closes his mouth with a sigh. "What has my life become?" he mutters to the nearest pack member.

Unfortunately for him, that happens to be Stiles, who clearly doesn't feel sorry for him in the slightest. He just grins at Derek before turning to the Reyes' and saying, "You're just in time, come sit down for dinner . . ."

While the food is on the table, they don't talk about werewolves. The adults keep the conversation on neutral topics while everyone stuffs their faces. Cynthia and Javier look continually more and more astonished, both at how friendly their daughter is with these people, how they take her vulgar mouth in stride, and how much food she's putting in her mouth. She puts away two entire platefuls of Stiles' beef stew.

Erica finishes the second plate and several people look at her as if waiting to see if there's going to be a request for a third. She takes a deep breath and then relaxes into her chair. "I'm good."

"Amazing," Isaac says, and gets a wadded up napkin thrown at him for his trouble.

"No throwing food at my table," Stilinski says, thinking about the many, many food fights this room has hosted. "At least not in front of guests."

"Yes, Papa Stilinski," a bunch of voices obediently chorus.

Cynthia is looking at Erica with a worried frown, which is understandable, since any new behavior can be a precursor to a seizure. "Are you all right?" she asks.

"What?" Erica asks, blinking, then realizes what her mother is really asking. "Oh. Yeah, perfectly fine. Rock steady. No funny taste or anything."

"You just don't usually . . ." Cynthia trails off, at a loss as to how to finish the sentence without insulting either her daughter or Stiles, who cooked the meal.

"Eat?" Erica offers. Things are edging towards awkward in a pretty dramatic way.

"Nobody can resist my cooking," Stiles says with a cheerful grin, lightening the mood almost instantly. "And this is one of my specialties. It's actually a recipe I made up myself, but it comes from a recipe for Flemish beef stew. The trick is to get a really _good_ dark beer . . ." He continues to chatter about how to make the stew, which nobody at the table cares about in the slightest, to give everyone time while the mood settles.

Scott and Allison start clearing the table. "We're on dish duty," Isaac says, nudging Lydia, and she makes a face at him.

"Coffee?" Stiles asks the Reyes'.

"Please," Cynthia says, still a little unnerved. "Two cream, two sugars."

"I take mine black," Javier says, and Stiles jumps to get it while the room clears of everyone except the adults, himself, and Erica.

Once the coffee is served, Erica finds herself giving Stiles a grateful look. She was so wrong. This was way better than anything she would have done on her own. It was still as uncomfortable as fuck, but at least she felt like she had backup. Stiles just gives her a little smile in return, not a smug smile, just a 'this is what I do' sort of smile, which looks right at home on his face.

"Erica, you can't have coffee!" Cynthia says, aghast, as Stiles puts a mug down in front of her.

"I, uh . . ." Erica pulls the mug towards herself, soaking in the warmth and taking a deep breath. She really wants to try it. It always smells so good, but maybe her mother has a point and she shouldn't yet. She looks over at Derek as the resident expert on what her body can and can't handle.

Derek shrugs, his eyes shifting to her parents for a second before saying, "Try it. Just a few sips. Go slow and you should be fine." They're going to have to start breaking it to her parents somehow. "And add milk, or it's going to be more bitter than Lydia's ex-boyfriend."

Stiles passes her the creamer while her parents gape. Cynthia finally manages, "I, I think we know better than you about her medical condition and what she can and can't have."

"Under normal circumstances, you would be absolutely correct," Melissa smoothly intervenes. "And we would never dream of telling you otherwise. But things have changed for Erica in the past twenty-four hours, and we called you over here so we could tell you about it."

Erica adds a generous amount of creamer, tries it, and makes a face. "Holy Christ." She adds more, then looks up in time to see her mother swell like she's going to start taking people apart. Her father doesn't look too pleased either. It's hard for her to be angry, since this sort of behavior has always protected her and taken care of her in the past. "It's okay. _I'm_ okay. For pretty much the first time ever."

"Erica, what . . . what's happened?" Javier asks.

Derek interjects here. "We turned her into a werewolf."

Both of Erica's parents just blink at him, dumbfounded.

"Grrr," Erica says, in a fairly unconvincing manner. "No, seriously. Werewolf. Turns out that epilepsy isn't so much of an issue for them. Us."

"If . . . if this is some kind of joke," Cynthia begins, her voice shaking, and that's when Derek shifts into his partial form. Predictable chaos follows, and it takes Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski several minutes to get them calmed down and back in their seats.

Erica takes a moment to get over how awesome the claws were. She gives her parents a hopeful look. "See?" She waves a flailing hand at her own face. "It's already helping. Less shitty medicine, more food. I don't feel like I want to roll over and smother myself with my own pillow just to avoid getting out of bed. I actually feel like I give a fuck."

"But – but you've been turned into – " Cynthia stares helplessly at Derek's now-human face, her mouth working soundlessly.

"A werewolf," Stiles interjects. He sounds calm, but there's that steel underneath his voice, that note which says people had better stop aggravating his pack or they'll regret it. "I won't say it doesn't have any drawbacks, but the wolves keep their full consciousness when they shift. It's not a curse."

Javier rounds on him. "Are you the one who did this to my daughter?"

"Hey! They didn't do anything to me. It was informed consent. It wasn't like I was attacked or tripped and fell onto someone's waiting teeth. Jesus." Erica is giving her father a glare at least as fierce as the one she had directed at Stiles earlier.

"You can't give informed consent!" Cynthia snaps. "You're a minor!"

"We probably should have talked to you first," Sheriff Stilinski admits, "but it's sort of difficult to believe, and – "

"Damn right you should have talked to us!" Javier yells. "We never would have let her anywhere near you crazy bastards if we'd known!"

"Well, shit, Dad, I'm glad I _didn't_ talk it over with you, then! What the fuck do you mean I can't give informed consent?" She slams her hand down on the table. "All that means is that I understand the pros and cons of treatment. What could go right or wrong. And fuck if I don't understand that after living with this for my entire life!"

"Maybe we should all stop yelling," Melissa says.

Cynthia shakes her head, almost frantically. "There, there must be a way to undo it, right?"

Derek just shakes his head.

"There _has_ to be a way to undo it!" she shouts.

"There isn't," Derek says.

"Oh, God," Cynthia says. "My little girl . . ."

"Is _fine_," Erica blurts out. "I'm fine. I'm awesome! I woke up this morning and I was _hungry_. When was the last time I actually _wanted_ to eat something?"

"Being a werewolf isn't that bad," Derek says. "I've been one my whole life. It's not a curse. It's a gift. It makes you stronger. It lets you heal faster. It enhances your senses. And yes, it also happens to let you shift forms into a wolf or a part-wolf, part-human. But it's not as terrible as you're making it out to be. Yes, there are bad werewolves out there, and that's who the movies have been made about, but there are bad people out there, too. The vast majority of werewolves are just like people, living their lives and minding their own business."

Cynthia sits back down with a thump. She doesn't seem to know what to say. Javier is still spitting mad. "Erica, get your coat," he snaps. "You, you haven't heard the last of this," he adds to the others. "You stay away from my daughter!"

Erica jerks to her feet automatically at her father's command, because he's her father and he's upset, but her eyes are dragged by an unexpected gravitational force to Derek and Stiles, especially Stiles. The idea of being split up from them is terrifying, and a small animal whine escapes the back of her throat. She doesn't even know where the feeling is coming from, but it doesn't seem wrong so she doesn't fight it.

Sheriff Stilinski is on his feet as well, his hands spread out in a placating gesture. "Mr. Reyes, please," he says, "we all want what's best for Erica."

Javier opens his mouth to reply, but then looks to the side at where Stiles has gently taken Erica's hand and tugged her back into her seat. "Get your hands off her, you little bastard," he snarls.

Stiles' jaw sets in that familiar stubborn expression, and his father hastily continues before he can explode. "Think of this like another medical trial," he says.

"Like an experimental new drug," Melissa says, since she knows more about it than the others. "Being used off label. Not a lot of official testing, but great anecdotal results. Which would have a good chance of making Erica _completely_ seizure free. And in return, for a few nights every month she just gets kind of sick instead. If something like that was available, wouldn't you have been willing to give it a try?"

"Well . . ." Cynthia looks at her daughter and her new clothes, her makeup, the look on her face as she leans into Stiles' shoulder. Some of the panicky feeling left her as soon as Stiles had her by the hand, and once she was settled back into her chair, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his shirt.

"I'm sorry I got mad at you," she mumbles, and Stiles just rubs her back in a comforting gesture. Derek had moved with Stiles, almost at his elbow, but he forced himself not to touch Erica or react to the aggression the man is flinging at his alpha. His jaw tightens, and he takes a slow, deep breath.

"A doctor never would have done anything like that without consulting us," Javier says through gritted teeth.

"True," Melissa says, "but we aren't doctors. And this wasn't a drug. Ultimately, Erica had to make the choice herself – and she had to choose to tell you herself."

Erica peeks out from around Stiles and says, "So take that," glaring at her father.

Derek rolls his eyes. "You are going to be in so much trouble," he says to Erica. To her parents, he says, "We wouldn't have offered without knowing how it works. We wouldn't have endangered Erica's health. It helped Scott, who was a pretty bad asthmatic beforehand."

"Well . . ." Cynthia is clearly hedging. "No more seizures? Really?"

"Really," Derek says. "She's already feeling a lot better."

Cynthia swallows hard. "Will . . . will we have to keep her locked up during the full moon?"

"No," Derek says flatly. "The first couple of full moons are difficult, but it's her pack's responsibility, _our_ responsibility, to help her through that. It's just a matter of learning self-control. She'll never not be Erica."

"Oh." Cynthia swallows again. "Oh. That's good."

"Javier, please sit down," Melissa says. "I know you're upset, but let's talk about this. Okay?"

Javier's jaw clenches in an unpleasant expression, but then he nods stiffly and sits back down. Derek gives in to instinct and does run a hand over Erica's hair before sitting down in one of the empty seats with Stiles between himself and Erica. Her grip on Stiles loosens up somewhat when it becomes clear that her parents aren't going to drag her away from her pack and her alpha.

Since it seems they're in somewhat more of a mood to listen, Stiles takes the floor, explaining about werewolves in depth. He's done more than his share of research about them, and knows almost as much as Derek does at this point. He explains about werewolf families and turned wolves, and how he and Scott had gotten involved, although he minimizes the trauma as much as possible. He doesn't mention hunters. Their truce is holding, and some things just aren't important for the Reyes' to know. He doesn't say much about Peter Hale, either, or how he got the position of alpha. That sort of thing was important for Erica, but it isn't important for her parents.

Cynthia settles down somewhat and starts asking questions, and between the assembled people, they manage to answer everything to her satisfaction. Javier just sits there with his jaw set in a stubborn expression that's fairly similar to the way Erica looks when she's pissed off. He doesn't argue, but he does give Stiles several sharp looks, clearly unhappy with the way Erica is cuddling up to him.

Derek, meanwhile, has sunk gratefully back into his stoic silence. He makes a mental note to ask Sheriff Stilinski how he had resisted the urge to punch Javier in the face when he called Stiles a little bastard. He thinks it might come in handy in the future. He stays quiet until Stiles is done talking and Cynthia seems to have asked all her questions, at least for now. Then he steps in again, because he doesn't care if Javier is angry at him, as long as he can get along with Stiles and the other parents. "You're still angry. Why?"

Javier scowls at him. "Besides the fact that you went behind my back and made a life-changing decision with my daughter without seeing fit to inform me?"

"Yes," Derek says, unperturbed. "Besides that."

Javier just glares daggers. "She's my daughter," he says. "You couldn't possibly understand."

Stiles looks at Derek and says, in a quiet voice without emotion, "He's jealous that we helped her where he couldn't."

This catches Derek off guard. "What?" He understands the words, but it's so far from what he was expecting to hear that he's thrown by it.

Sheriff Stilinski winces. Stiles isn't wrong, but saying it in front of everyone was a little less tactful than usual. Melissa doesn't look thrilled with him, either. Cynthia just looks tired, but she doesn't object. Javier only gets more pissed off. "You, you," he sputters, searching for an appropriate insult. "How _dare_ you say that to me?"

Now it's Derek who winces, having learned that Stiles will dare just about anything. Erica, for her part, stares at her father incredulously. "Is that what this is about? You think you haven't helped me _enough_?"

"No, honey," Javier says, and struggles to find words to explain. "It's just, we've always done everything together, and – " There's a pause. Then he says, stiffly, "Would you mind giving us a little privacy?"

Stiles gives Erica a questioning look, wanting to be sure it's okay. She nods and gives his hand a squeeze, so he stands up and leaves the room with the others on his heels. Javier glooms in silence until they're gone. Erica doesn't give her father an opening; she just launches right in. "I don't know how to make you less pissed off if I don't know what has you pissed off. Is it because I didn't talk it over with you guys or ask permission? Or is because you think you haven't helped enough? Because that's bullshit. You've so helped enough. Maybe I think your life shouldn't revolve around worrying about whether or not I'll start twitching like a freak, take a header down the stairs, and finally kick the bucket." She slumps in her seat, giving him a nervous, worried pout.

"We've always talked everything over as a family," Javier says. "Why didn't you come to us? Did you not trust us?"

"You did sort of flip your shit. I told you now, didn't I?" She scowls a little. "Well, Stiles decided to tell you tonight. I knew I wanted to tell you, but he just worked out all the details. But if I hadn't trusted you, I wouldn't have wanted to tell you at all."

Since her father is still glowering, she shrugs and tries to think about why she hadn't talked it over with them. "It's like . . . being part of the pack is like being part of a family, a really close family. They can decide I would fit in. And _I_ can decide if I fit in. But you can't. Like . . . okay, I know you want to punch Stiles right now, but pretend you don't. Imagine his dad trying to decide if Stiles was going to fit in as a part of our family. How the fuck would he know?"

"So you didn't want to talk to us because you're replacing us?" Javier asks.

"No! Are you _trying_ to take everything the wrong way, Dad? Why would you even fucking _ask_ me that?"

Cynthia intervenes here. "It . . . it's a lot to take in," she says. "You have to give us some time and respect that. But . . . I'm glad that you're okay." She chokes on a sob. "I'm so glad that you're finally going to be okay."

"Oh, jeez, Mom." Erica gets up, circles the table, and hugs her mother.

"I'm all right," Cynthia says, sniffling. "I just . . . I think what your dad is trying to say is that . . . it's taken us off guard how grown up you are now. It's almost as if you eloped and got married behind our back. Because you can be part of two families, honey, you can, but you went and chose this new family and new life for yourself without saying a word."

Erica can't help but grin at that. "Don't think of it like losing a daughter. Think of it like gaining a bunch of other teenagers. And Derek."

Javier glares at her. "That's not comforting."

Her grin turned a little wolfy. "Since when have I ever been comforting?"

Cynthia lets out a sudden bark of laughter. "She's got you there, Javi."

Javier's glare just intensifies. "That Stiles kid . . . do I have to get my shotgun where he's concerned?"

"Well, since his dad is the sheriff and we're in his house . . ." Erica plunks down in the chair next to her mother and waits to see how well that crack goes over. It does not go over well. Her father looks like he's bitten down on a lemon. "We aren't dating. We aren't screwing. I'm not screwing anyone." She squirms a little. "But we're cuddly."

Javier folds his arms over his chest and says, "I guess that's all right." After a pause, he says, "You never used to want anyone touching you."

"I know! While I was out with Lydia and Allison today I was all like, 'hug me!' It's the wolf thing. We're cuddly with each other. Like a normal wolf pack would be. If anyone outside the pack tried, I'm pretty sure I'll want to break their fingers or their face." Unless it was an attractive male like Julian, but she doesn't think she needs to tell her parents about that.

Cynthia just lets out a sigh. "I think we need a little time to sit on this," she says. "Maybe we should let it go for the rest of the night."

Erica nods, her hair bouncing, which still makes her smile. "Stiles made some sort of dessert thing involving strawberries and . . . other things that smell good, so you probably want to try it. Pretty much everything he's fed me so far has been to die for."

"He doesn't seem the type," Javier remarks.

"To cook or to take care of people?"

"Either, really, but I meant cooking."

"I dunno. He made me an omelet, and cookies for everyone, and babbled something earlier about how tonight's dinner was supposed to be a pot roast but he fed it crack or something." Or at least it tasted like it was crack.

"Bacon, actually," Stiles says, poking his head into the dining room. "Better than crack and entirely legal. Everything okay?"

"Mmmm, bacon," Erica says, in a tone that shouldn't be used for food. She looks at her parents. "Are we good?"

"For now, I guess," Javier says. He sounds grumpy, but no longer actively angry. Stiles can deal with grumpy. He deals with grumpy every single day.

"I'll bring out dessert, then," Stiles says, smiling at them.

Erica grins back, knowing that Stiles will bring the rest of the pack in with him when he comes back. She thinks about telling Stiles that he's doomed to look at her shoulder forever, but she's afraid that he would drop something.

The rest of the pack does indeed come rushing in, and several of them start thanking Erica's parents for letting her stay. They seem somewhat taken aback by this, but then Stiles comes in with a tray of strawberry shortcake. Derek, behind him, has a small stack of plates. "Okay," Stiles says, setting it down. "All's well that ends well. Let's eat."

* * *

_I hope y'all have enjoyed this nice, happy, fluffy fic. Coming up soon will be another serious one, returning more to the mood that Coming Undone set in the first place. Thanks for reading!_


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